Spotify Ltd has held talks with potential content partners to add podcasts to its music-streaming service, challenging Apple Inc in a business it dominates, according to people briefed on the matter.
Spotify, which hosts some podcast-like audio such as Spanish lessons along with millions of songs, plans to add more non-music programming, according to the people, who were not authorized to speak publicly and asked not to be identified. While the discussions have occurred for several months, there is no firm plan or introduction date, one of the people said.
An expansion into areas such as news or comedy would help Spotify broaden its sources of material and reduce its reliance on major record labels, which have sought changes to the streaming product to increase revenue. It would also intensify the brewing competition between Spotify and Apple, which is working on a new subscription streaming service to replace Beats Music.
Photo: AFP
Podcasts on Stockholm-based Spotify could include a video component, one of the people said. A customer listening to an audio report could toggle to a full video version, that person said.
Speculation about Spotify’s podcast plans surfaced in November last year after TechCrunch.com reported new features uncovered in a developer version of the app. One highlighted podcasts — which would make non-music content easier to find on Spotify — and the other was called “Magic” with no hint of what it was for.
Spotify, available in 58 markets globally, says it has more than 60 million active users and more than 15 million paying subscribers. It has more users than any other subscription streaming music service, though fewer than Pandora Media Inc, the largest online radio service.
Some entertainers have built careers from a single podcast show, such as Marc Maron, the comedian who hosts WTF. Podcasts as a genre earned a lot of press coverage recently due to the popularity of Serial, about a murder trial, created by radio station WBEZ in Chicago.
Apple’s iTunes offers hundreds of thousands of podcasts, while Deezer, a Paris-based music streaming service, added more than 35,000 radio shows and podcasts when it acquired Stitcher, a San Francisco-based company.
China’s economic planning agency yesterday outlined details of measures aimed at boosting the economy, but refrained from major spending initiatives. The piecemeal nature of the plans announced yesterday appeared to disappoint investors who were hoping for bolder moves, and the Shanghai Composite Index gave up a 10 percent initial gain as markets reopened after a weeklong holiday to end 4.59 percent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dived 9.41 percent. Chinese National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Zheng Shanjie (鄭珊潔) said the government would frontload 100 billion yuan (US$14.2 billion) in spending from the government’s budget for next year in addition
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
TECH JUGGERNAUT: TSMC shares have more than doubled since ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022, as demand for cutting-edge artificial intelligence chips remains high Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday posted a better-than-expected 39 percent rise in quarterly revenue, assuaging concerns that artificial intelligence (AI) hardware spending is beginning to taper off. The main chipmaker for Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc reported third-quarter sales of NT$759.69 billion (US$23.6 billion), compared with the average analyst projection of NT$748 billion. For last month alone, TSMC reported revenue jumped 39.6 percent year-on-year to NT$251.87 billion. Taiwan’s largest company is to disclose its full third-quarter earnings on Thursday next week and update its outlook. Hsinchu-based TSMC produces the cutting-edge chips needed to train AI. The company now makes more
Protectionism: US trade chief Katherine Tai said the hikes would help to counter unfair trade practices from China, while boosting domestic clean energy investments US Trade Representative Katherine Tai (戴琪) defended stiff tariff hikes against countries such as China, saying that paired with investment, they were a “legitimate and constructive” tool for reinvigorating domestic industries. Tai’s comments come a week after sharp tariff increases on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs), EV batteries and solar cells took effect — with levies down the line on other products also recently finalized. The latest moves targeting US$18 billion in Chinese goods come weeks before next month’s US presidential election, with Democrats and Republicans pushing a hard line on China as competition between Washington and Beijing intensifies. In an interview on Thursday
RSS