Spotify Announces Downloads and Offline Playback on Apple Watch for Premium Subscribers

[Abazigal]

It is odd given the propagation of the AW. Also, timing means a lot in the stream service industry. Delay equals more people getting used to relying on an alternate service.
But this is good anyway. If nothing else it keeps competition up making all players have to try better.

I am also curious as to what made Spotify drag their feet. Is it a case like split screen on google apps where they simply felt it wasn’t a priority at the moment, or was making a functional watch app much harder because Spotify doesn’t have system level access the way that Apple does?

I also wonder just how many people actually stream music from their watch and don’t have their phone nearby. Currently, the only use case I can think of is when running outdoors.

 

[One2Grift]

I am also curious as to what made Spotify drag their feet. Is it a case like split screen on google apps where they simply felt it wasn’t a priority at the moment, or was making a functional watch app much harder because Spotify doesn’t have system level access the way that Apple does?

I also wonder just how many people actually stream music from their watch and don’t have their phone nearby. Currently, the only use case I can think of is when running outdoors.

Good questions.

I doubt the delay was blocked access by Apple (at very minimum probably be skirting regs). My suspicion it is a combination of Spotify not seeing a current big enough need(they may be right) while focusing on much more important revenue areas (podcasts). But They’re going up against the 800 megaton gorilla in the room, Apple, and can’t afford many mistakes. While Spotify certainly isn’t a small company (8 billion revenue in last 12 months) and they’re growing revenue nicely, and in 2018-2019 they were close to breaking even, the last 12 months they had a 1/2 billion in losses. The sharp loss increase is probably all toward the podcast services ramp up(a little bit of Apple pricing pressure). Surprisingly, Music streaming now is tight profit margins. But podcasts has some nice margins. This is where Spotify can become outright profitable. So it is my guess Spotify is focusing a lot on podcasts. But app functionality is an important metric selling point and Spotify is the biggest music streamer. They can’t afford for it to be said ‘Spotify app doesn’t work <for up to 100 million AW users>’.

As far as the watch app functionality itself? It is nice to have as the phone isn’t always handy for me(but I use AM). I suspect some really can use it but it’s not going to be in the radar of many millions right now. With that said, Apple’s wearables revenue has been bigger than Mac revenue or IPad revenue(one wearable quarter’s revenue is more than all year for all of Spotify). AW is probably the lions share of the wearables. In 2015 Apple sold 4.5 million AW. This past December they surpassed 100 million AW sold. some recent estimates are suggesting the AW will proliferate the iPhone user base by up to 40% (Apple missed music streaming for years while Spotify kicked ass — but JHFC did Apple hit the dead center bullseye with AW). The coming AW (and non WatchOS smartwatch) user base is just too HUGE to have competitors saying “their app doesn’t ____”. Spotify should definitely keep that in mind next time IMHO.

 

[Abazigal]

They can’t afford for it to be said ‘Spotify app doesn’t work <for up to 100 million AW users>’.

Valid point here. Perhaps Spotify felt that watch support wasn't a priority back when the install base of apple watches was still fairly low, but as more and more people continue to buy apple watches, it's becoming a market that's too big to ignore. Even if just a 1-2 million switch to Apple Music because of this, that's still a lot of lost revenue.

 

[One2Grift]

Valid point here. Perhaps Spotify felt that watch support wasn't a priority back when the install base of apple watches was still fairly low, but as more and more people continue to buy apple watches, it's becoming a market that's too big to ignore. Even if just a 1-2 million switch to Apple Music because of this, that's still a lot of lost revenue.

Revenue that Spotify arguably can’t afford to lose right now. Their current margins are extremely tight and operating expenses are pushing profitability further out:

Year. Revenue. Net Loss
2020 7,880,000,000 -581,000,000
2019 6,764,000,000 -186,000,000
2018 5,259,000,000 -78,000,000

“Right now, Spotify's big investments in podcasts doesn't seem to be paying off quickly. As I use the app today, there's a lot of open advertising inventory, and the revenue in podcasting clearly isn't going to be enough to generate much margin in 2021. In the first quarter, ad-supported gross margin, which includes podcast content costs, was just 4.4%.”
A long term lucrative advertising network is Spotify’s eventual destination, they hope.

 

[Abazigal]

“Right now, Spotify's big investments in podcasts doesn't seem to be paying off quickly. As I use the app today, there's a lot of open advertising inventory, and the revenue in podcasting clearly isn't going to be enough to generate much margin in 2021. In the first quarter, ad-supported gross margin, which includes podcast content costs, was just 4.4%.”
A long term lucrative advertising network is Spotify’s eventual destination, they hope.

I have always thought the point of Spotify going into podcasting was to get users to stream less music, which means less revenue paid to record labels.

That said, I am not sure why I still have to be subject to ads after paying Spotify a monthly fee. My guess is that Spotify is trying to lure podcast creators to their platform by offering them a means of monetising their work, hoping that listeners will follow these creators on to Spotify.

It's possible that Spotify may become the largest podcast platform in the future, but it will be a platform I have no desire to be a part of.

 

[-Maxim-]

I still don't see that feature in my spotify app. Newest updates installed both iOS and watchOS and of course spotify. What's taking so long?

The option finally showed up on my iPhone last week and I can download playlist to my S3 watch. Nice!

 

[fadhilfirdausi]

Though with this update, I ended up with switching to apple music. The experience with this download feature just suck. The app keep crashing when I try to open the download section. My watch is series 5 GPS (non cellular), it needs to connect to the phone in order to open the download section. Even, it needs to open the spotify app on phone in order to connect the phone app with watch app and test it with playing some music. Kind of useless

this crash problem also occurs when I try to open non downloaded playlists. I need to really make sure that my phone app is connected with the watch app before do that, otherwise it will crash.

Idk if this just happens to me, but I gave up with spotify