Spotify Teases Announcement After Stock Drop, Possible Voice-Controlled Music Device For Cars, Per ‘The Verge’
With Spotify just making its stock public and achieving early success on Wall Street, it now appears the company could soon release its first tech gadget. The company has announced they’ll have some big news to share later on this month which has already led to speculation. Could the Spotify music service soon be more readily available inside of automobiles and elsewhere? Here’s the latest on what Spotify might be showing off or revealing later this month.
On Friday, it was made public knowledge that Spotify will make their big announcement in New York on Saturday, April 24th. It’s unknown if that news will be about something brand new with their music streaming program on computers and other devices, or if it will be a hardware release. The Verge speculated that it is the latter of these, with the possible reveal of an in-car device that is voice controlled and works with the Spotify music service to play through one’s car radio.
There were reports of Spotify customers who received a special offer inside the app back in February. That offer was for a $12.99 per month subscription which would also come with a unique device. Other reports said Spotify customers were asked about an offer with a $14.99 price and support for the Amazon Alexa. However, Spotify never verified those reports of special offers and nothing more had been made of them, until now.
Both the Amazon Alexa and Apple’s Siri are already being integrated into people’s cars in different forms. Based on the report of an Amazon Alexa special offer from Spotify it leaves one to wonder if the company will be partnering in some form with Amazon to take on Apple Carplay. In addition, any new service or hardware for cars could take Spotify into competition with Sirius XM which has been inside automobiles for years now.
The Spotify company was first founded in 2006 and launched in 2008 as a music, podcast, and video streaming service. Customers can use the web player for free with advertisements playing during their use of the service. In addition to being usable on a computer, Spotify has been made available as an app for smartphones, tablets, and streaming media devices such as Amazon’s Fire TV. The music streaming service can also be integrated with Amazon’s Echo speakers for listening to one’s playlists, albums or other music, but the use of Spotify comes with a monthly price on some devices.
The upcoming news seems like it will start giving Spotify their own physical technology. This wouldn’t be the first time a traditional web-based or app-based company has released a physical company. One fellow tech company that has had a slumping stock since it’s IPO is Snapchat. They’ve also attempted to make a foray into tech devices with their special Snapchat glasses, but those seem to have much less mainstream appeal than voice interactive speakers and music do at the moment.
As mentioned, the Spotify stock made its way to the stock market just a few days ago and was an early success. Since then, the price has sunk. As of Friday, Spotify’s stock price was $120.20 after reaching a previous high of $169.01, per CNBC. The introduction of an exciting new piece of tech and service that major automakers will integrate into future cars could go a long way towards bumping that price back up, though.
