Spotify Introducing Streaming Videos On Its Mobile Apps

You may be familiar with Spotify, a streaming music service that offers commercial-free listening for a monthly subscription price, as well as a free version that comes with ads. The streaming platform is now branching out with the debut of music content on its mobile apps this week.

The Sweden-based company has plans to unleash video content on its Android app this week, with iOS joining in by the end of next week in the U.S., as well as Germany and Sweden, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The company first announced it would be distributing videos and podcasts back in May by partnering with content providers like ESPN, Comedy Central, the BBC and others.

Some Spotify users have already experienced video content, as the company has been testing that medium on less than 10% of its subscribers in the four launch markets, the company said, with things like short clips from TV talk shows and the like.

The video product will only be available on apps, and not on the desktop version of Spotify. The company tells the WSJ that it’s been pairing videos with what kind of music people listen to, or videos that are tied to the music, which has been popular.

Videos will be ad-free — at least, at first — as the company says it’s mostly banking on video as a way to expand its audience and draw users in more deeply. Again, that’s the plan for now.

“This [launch] is fundamentally about giving music fans what they want,” Shiva Rajaraman, Spotify’s vice president of product told the WSJ. “We are doing fine on monetization. This is primarily a demand play.”

Spotify Ready to Introduce Video Product [Wall Street Journal]