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Say hello to Spotify: Can it beat the old players?
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A user opens the Spotify application on her cell phone. Officially launched on Wednesday in Jakarta, Spotify boasts over 30 million songs with a 320 kbps bitrate streaming quality and even higher quality versions for those who upgrade to a premium service. (Shutterstock.com/Denys Prykhodov)
I
t's official — Spotify is finally part of the country's music streaming platform competition, joining the likes of Guvera and Apple Music.
Officially launched on Wednesday in Jakarta, the service boasts over 30 million songs with a 320 kilobits per second (kbps) bitrate streaming quality and even higher quality versions for those who upgrade to a premium service.
Founded in 2008, the Swedish company features details of albums and playlists, music charts from different countries, new releases and tickets. All are easy to navigate on the sleek black and green display. It also supports a wide variety of devices besides smartphones and computers, such as tablets, home entertainment systems and PlayStations.
Several membership options are available for subscribers in Indonesia including a free seven-day trial for Android users and a free 30-day trial for PC users. After the complimentary service is over, members will be charged Rp 49,990 per month (US$3.80) with benefits including offline streaming and no ads.
The placement of ads is indeed rather disruptive as they sometimes cover small parts of the page and come with sounds.
With a reported 30 million subscribers worldwide, Spotify also offers a premium service with a starting price of Rp 500,000 per year and a family package that starts at Rp 70,000 per month for a maximum of five family members.
In the archipelago, one of the company's toughest competitors is Guvera. Established in 2008 in Australia, the service uses a brand-funding system that guarantees both music labels and artists receive their rewards.
Supported by over 15 million subscribers in 20 countries, Guvera provides an easy-to-adapt display in an eye-catching red and a catalog of more than 30 million songs with a 256 kbps bitrate. Free membership is available with features including creating playlists and playing music in shuffle mode. Those wanting to skip songs anytime they want and access music offline might want to consider platinum membership, which starts at Rp 55,000 per month.
Available for web browsers and popular mobile operating systems (iOS, Android and Windows Phone), ad placement in Guvera for free accounts is quite friendly; they show up on the page but only last for six seconds without making any sounds.
Another strong contender in music streaming is, of course, Apple Music, which has over 30 million songs with 256 kbps bitrate in its library. Despite being an iOS-based app, the service can also be downloaded for a limited period on Android smartphones.
For new members, Apple Music offers a three-month trial, and subsequent rates from Rp 65,000 for individuals and Rp 109,000 for families with a maximum of six users.
Although free-trial users will particularly enjoy the fact that it is almost free of ads, the service arguably lacks some indie music and remix tracks that are not included on artists' original albums. (kes)
