Spotify comes to Vietnam, still in the red

When US-headquartered music streaming giant Spotify entered Vietnam in March and brought its 35 million songs to the Vietnamese market, the move took place after a series of serious deliberations.
In response to written questions, the company reflects that there were not only practical considerations in launching its service here, like making sure the interface had a Vietnamese language option, but the company also had to make sure it was in line with prevailing intellectual property and e-commerce law.
Not to mention getting the rights to songs from top Vietnamese musicians. The company highlighted V-Pop Khong The Thieu, Tuyet Pham Bolero, Ca Phe Quan Quen and #phuot.
Spotify’s remarks were given without personal attribution.

In its remarks, the company described Vietnam as a “mobile-first nation” that has a large appetite for content consumed by the small screen. The company also stated an interest in helping smaller, lesser known artists break into a larger audience for the streaming service’s users.
Mixed Results
In its remarks, the company would not disclose specifically how many users it specifically had in Vietnam. During an earnings call earlier this month, the company told investors it had 75 million paying subscribers and 99 million users using the free version of the program.
That’s well ahead of Apple Music, which in March told investors that it had 38 million users on its service, which was launched in 2015.
Since the start of 2018, Spotify has added four million paying subscribers and nine million users on its free streaming service.

Growth though it may be, the streaming service seems to be struggling to find an effective revenue strategy, a problem that carries more weight since the service began offering company shares to investors on the New York Stock Exchange in April.
At the time it decided to debut on the US stock exchange, the buying public gave the company a total valuation of $26.6 billion. But in the first quarter of 2018, the company lost US$49 million, Spotify told investors in its May earnings call.
It also cited that revenue losses were nearly four times those in the same quarter last year.
Spotify told investors it expects to lose $395 million during 2018.
New Features, New Market
To woo new users to its service, Spotify recently introduced new services, like the ability for its free users to pick from a broader catalogue of music and a “data saver” option that aims to keep the program’s data usage light.
Spotify also recently introduced integration with Instagram, which will allow users to post song selections to the photo sharing app.

With Vietnam, the service is now available in over 60 countries.
In prepared remarks, Spotify told #iAMHCMC that its interest in Vietnam hewed to its interest in building economies around the world and providing direct benefit to local recording artists.
By Jesus Lopez Gomez
Source: Citypassguide