Spotify and commpetitor Rdio this week launched in 2 new markets throughtout Latin America and Europe, that includes Costa Rica.
The Spotify expansion will be largely located throughout South and Central America. The expansion brings Spotify’s locations from 35 up to 55, and brings it to locations including Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Ecuador, Nicaragua an Costa Rica.
The expansion was announced at this week, where Spotify CEO Daniel Ek also illustrated just how active its current user base has been. His statistics were highlighted by the detail that users have streamed 4.5 billion hours of music over the last year alone. Spotify playlists have also seen significant traction, with 1.5 million being created each day for a total of 1.5 billion made to date. Its Follow button has also seen some success, with over 300 million follows occurring since the feature was announced last year.
Spotify didn’t give an update on how many users it had, but as of March, the company said that it had over 6 million paying users and over 24 million active users. With its expansion today, those numbers could grow a lot bigger soon.
Over at Rdio, the new operating areas include much of Latin America, Israel, and South Africa. First-time Rdio users in these countries will receive metered access to the web version of Rdio for six months, as well as a 14-day mobile trial.
The move comes at the same time as Rdio confirmed the majority of its audience is now based outside the United States. The service says 57 percent of its monthly active users now come from outside the US, increasing from 30 percent at the beginning of 2013. The addition of the new territories brings the number of nations served by the music streaming service to 51, four fewer than rival Spotify, which recently announced its expansion into 20 new markets. The two services share many of their newest markets, with much of Latin America and Europe now able to choose between Rdio or Spotify subscriptions for the first time. News of Rdio’s expansion comes after a flurry of Spotify headlines, as the Swedish service also announced free mobile streaming on its iOS and Android apps, and the addition of Led Zeppelin to its catalog in December.
As Spotify continues to grow, concerns are mounting over Rdio’s future. The service confirmed a set of layoffs last month, with a reported 35 people being forced out of the company to help it “improve its cost structure and ensure a scalable business model for the long-term.” Earlier this month the service announced the appointment of ex-Amazon executive Anthony Bay as its CEO after Drew Lerner, who’d been in the post since Rdio’s foundation in 2008, left the company in June.
Where other music streaming services provide user data — Pandora claimed 69.5 million monthly active users in March, while Spotify said it had 24 million and six million paying subscribers — Rdio hasn’t ever confirmed how many users it has. As Rdio’s competitors suffer executive shakeups and service closures, expanding to where its audience appears to be growing is a smart move.
Try them both.
www.spotify.com – Bolivia, Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Malta, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Slovakia, Uruguay
www.rdio.com -Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Israel, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, South Africa, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
Source: The Verge, Spotify.com, Rdio.com
