Technology - Google News

Spotify Has 100 Million Paid Subscribers - Thurrott.com

Posted: 29 Apr 2019 05:09 AM PDT

As part of its quarterly earnings announcement, Spotify said that it now has 100 million paying subscribers and 217 million users overall.

Spotify is the world's biggest streaming music service and its user base has grown 26 percent year-over-year: As you may recall, the firm announced in May 2018 that it had 170 million active users, 75 million of which were paid subscribers. Six months later, the numbers jumped to 191 million active users overall, 87 million paid subscribers.

But the company's financials have always been in the red: In the most recent quarter, Spotify lost $47 million on revenues of $1.68 billion, beating estimates. $1.5 billion of that revenue comes from paying subscribers, while $140 billion comes from ad-supported customers.

That divide between paying and ad-supported customers explains why Spotify has undergone expensive partnerships aimed at driving up the paying customer base further. It has had recent promotions with Google, in which it gave away free Google Home Mini smart speakers to Premium subscribers, and with Samsung. And it recently inked a deal with Hulu by which Premium subscribers get free access to the ad-supported Hulu tier.

Looking ahead, Spotify expects to grow its customer base at a similar pace to the previous year, and for the current quarter, it expects to see 107-110 million paid subscribers and 222-228 total users. Spotify plans to have up to 127 million paid subscribers by the end of the year and up to 265 million total users.

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Beats’ AirPods alternative start shipping May 10 - TechCrunch

Posted: 29 Apr 2019 07:04 AM PDT

Earlier this month, Beats unveiled its long-awaited answer to AirPods. The Powerbeats Pro feature far longer battery life, better sound and an improved fit. The Apple subsidiary promised a May release, and now we've got something more concrete.

The fully wireless earbuds go up for pre-order in the U.S. and Canada the morning of May 3 and will be available to everyone May 10 — just a little while longer to get your hands on what's looking to be a pretty solid alternative.

I spent a bit of time with the headphones already and was mostly pleased with the experience. The comfort's really the big thing here, especially given the fact AirPods' hard plastic just doesn't fit well in lots of ears. Couple that with the H1 one chip and you get the same basic pairing functionality you get with the Apple-branded earbuds. There's also a lot to say for the stated nine hours of battery life — more on that in our inevitable review, of course.

Downsides include an extremely large charging case, which you'll probably end up leaving at home when you go for a run. There's also the pretty lofty $250 price tag, which put them $50 north of the AirPods 2. Either way, it's a win-win for Apple. The Powerbeats Pro will be available in black at first, with white and brownish-green coming later in the summer.

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