TORONTO — Encouraging its wireless customers to use ever more data is at the core of Rogers’s new strategic partnership with music streamer Spotify which provides its Share Everything customers with access to the latter’s Premium music streaming service as part of their wireless plan.
As previously reported by Cartt.ca, Rogers’s new Share Everything+ plans allow customers to sign up or upgrade their wireless plans to include access to either Spotify Premium, shomi or Next Issue, starting at $70 per month for a 24-month period. Customers who sign up for Spotify Premium will be provided with up to three accounts, so each member of the family can stream his or her choice of ad-free music content on their mobile devices.
Rogers Communications president and CEO Guy Laurence and Spotify CEO and founder Daniel Ek (pictured) met with reporters in Toronto on Monday to discuss their partnership, which took less than two weeks for the companies to finalize, according to Ek, who flew in from Sweden for the press event. Laurence explained that he and Ek worked together on a similar deal a few years ago, when Laurence was still CEO of Vodafone UK.
Laurence was unapologetic about his company’s strategy to drive music streaming consumption among its wireless customers, in order to monetize the huge growth in data that Rogers is seeing on its networks. According to Laurence, data consumption is growing generally by 40% to 50% annually, with data usage among certain demographics, such as millennials, even higher than that.
Quoting recent data from Nielsen, Laurence said the average Canadian listens to 24 hours of music per week. According to Nielsen, 75% of Canadians have tried music streaming, with 95% of those Canadians using a mobile phone to do so, Laurence said.
“We have a core belief that nobody goes down to the pub with their mobile phone and says, ‘Hey, I consumed 25MB of data today, I’m so excited!’ We believe at the end of the day, that if you want to drive the mobile business, which equals the data business, then you’ve got to grow that by having exciting and compelling content on mobile phones,” Laurence said. He added that to help customers avoid “any nasty surprises” Rogers has upgraded its apps to provide real-time data usage stats.
Unlike Videotron’s new Unlimited Music service, whereby Videotron plans to exempt music streaming from customers’ mobile data caps, Rogers didn’t consider offering unlimited music streaming to its customers, Laurence told reporters.
“We never even looked at going that way to be honest, so it didn’t really come into the conversation.” – Guy Laurence, Rogers
“We never even looked at going that way to be honest, so it didn’t really come into the conversation,” Laurence said. “We see a core way of monetizing our mobile business. At the end of the day, there’s underlying demand for data, because people want to watch video and listen to music on their phones, and we want to encourage that.”
Laurence went on to say that Rogers is investing $49 million per week in building out its networks, both fixed and mobile, and the company increased its geographic coverage by 56% in the last year.
“We’re at the phase now where quite frankly it’s all about encouraging people to take advantage of that and to make sure they can access the content they want. Someone has to pay for that one day. Nothing in life is free,” Laurence said. He added that Rogers will be making other content services-related announcements in the coming weeks.
Since launching in Canada 10 months ago, Spotify has grown to 14 Canadian staff members and is already the number one music app on mobile in the country, according to Ek. He added that Canada is currently the fastest growing market globally for Spotify.
“We’re very early on in the journey. We’re probably where we were in some countries probably three or four years ago, and that’s super exciting to me,” Ek said. “What I’m seeing with the Canadians is they’re adopting Spotify way faster than any country before it, and that’s fantastic.”
“What I’m seeing with the Canadians is they’re adopting Spotify way faster than any country before it, and that’s fantastic.” – Daniel Ek, Spotify
Although some in the industry might expect the recent launch of Apple’s music streaming service would be viewed negatively by Spotify, Ek said it has actually benefited his company. The launch of the Apple Music service validates what Spotify argued 10 years ago, when it took the position that music streaming was the way of the future, as opposed to music downloading, Ek said.
Apple Music is helping to grow the streaming category, Ek said, and Spotify has in turn seen acceleration in its own growth as opposed to a decrease.
“It’s been great. We keep setting new records week by week,” Ek said. “I think a lot of people in general kind of view this as sort of, ‘Hey, is this the Spotify killer?’ or ‘Is Spotify the Apple killer?’ There’s always this kind of thing, and I realize it makes a good story to have us pitted against each other. But I think the good part is we’re both trying to grow the music industry.”
