Check out my Spotify Wrapped! Diffusion of Music through Global Markets
Now that the end of year is approaching, many people are sharing interesting information from their Spotify accounts on who their top artists are, how many minutes, or which tracks they missed out on across the country. It’s no surprise there—Spotify has a user base of over 144 million premium paying members globally. They dominate the digital music industry in some 87 countries and had an initial public offering in the middle of 2018.
Spotify is able to collect data from numerous sources across the world to influence all possible decisions regarding copyright, artist payment, and language access. In a world where music has an ever-growing reliance on digital streaming services, it seems the Goliath can shape their entire future. But what if another competitor were to enter the scene?
Deezer is a streaming service started in France. Deezer and Spotify have comparable services—the same price, same offerings, same audio quality, but Deezer has 20 million additional tracks—in foreign languages. As of 2020, it has been able to compete against Spotify through its unique go to market strategy that includes targeting local areas within other countries. This is a prime example of information diffusion through different communities or clusters to compete and gain footholds as opposed to competing with Spotify in major music hotspots like the US or North America. Deezer is available in an impressive 180+ countries, and it has been able to acquire regional music services in Saudia Arabia, Russia, Colombia, Thailand, Singapore, Brazil, and Mexico. It has yet to launch in the US.
It will be interesting to see where Deezer goes in the future, especially with regards to how it can compete against Spotify. Will they stick to the divide and conquer strategy of gaining local footholds, or will they eventually directly compete with Spotify in large markets? If they eventually do move to markets like the US where Spotify has a large foothold, Deezer will have many challenges. To start, Spotify is not built to be a social media platform, but many young people still like to share playlists or follow one another on the app. This network ensures that users still are aware of what their immediate neighbors use for digital music streaming, and Spotify is far past the tipping point in many markets. But in places where Spotify is not as prevalent, for example, in Brazil, Deezer has been able to get several clusters to use its service through targeted partnerships.
https://www.engadget.com/spotify-expands-russia-croatia-ukraine-191750551.html
https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/deezer-raises-185m-as-new-investment-values-company-at-1bn/