The music industry must beware it doesn’t get eaten up by phone giants’ hunger for growth
Telephone companies are in love with music again. Spotify recently announced a partnership with Samsung to become the phone giant’s “go-to” music streaming service, for both its phones and smart/voice assistant Bixby. Spotify’s stock price shot up on the day of the announcement. Should the music industry be getting similarly giddy? Spotify’s link-up with Samsung is one of a spate of recent deals between digital platforms and major telephone companies. US-based telco Verizon is now offering a free six months of Apple Music to Verizon Unlimited consumers, while rival Sprint is offering an Unlimited Plus plan that includes TIDAL baked right into it. Even Pandora last week announced that its Plus service will be bundled with T-Mobile for free for a year (so long as customers redeemed their code in time). Suddenly, the idea of simply obsessing over subscriber numbers feels a little antiquated, when every major music streaming service is further lock...