As part of the keynote at Apple’s WWDC (Worldwide Developer Conference) yesterday, the company announced the launch of music streaming service iTunes Radio.
Martin Scott, Principal Analyst at Analysys Mason, comments:
iTunes Radio has more in common with Pandora and Last.fm than Spotify. Apple’s service may have been launched several years behind the competition, but it benefits from:
- Promoting the service directly to 575 million iTunes accounts, many of which are associated with credit card details – Apple is banking on consumers then buying tracks
- A great recommendations engine – iTunes Genius, which has logged its users’ complete iTunes library (not just the tunes that they play) for the last five years and yields rich customised playlists. iTunes Radio extends this experience outside of the limitations of one person’s music library.
- The greatest impact will be felt by Pandora One. Pandora reported 2.5 million paying subscribers at the end of March 2013, many of which may feel that Apple’s new free service sufficiently caters for their needs. Spotify may be relatively secure as it offers a playlist-based, not just radio-based, service.