Coca-Cola brings Spotify to the Philippines (updated)

UPDATE: An earlier version of this article stated that Spotify Premium costs P129 a month. We got that information from Spotify’s website, but we were told that it is apparently just a placeholder. The pricing for Spotify Premium hasn’t been announced as of yet. We regret the error.

After years of waiting, Spotify is finally expanding into the Philippines today by letting people preview the service thru a partnership with Coca-Cola. That brings the Sweden-based company’s music streaming service to a total of 56 countries globally.

In the country, Spotify will have two plans for its users: a free plan that lets you stream an unlimited amount of music with audio ads inserted every few songs or so, and a premium account that gets rid of the ads in addition to allowing you to download and store music offline.

Spotify’s first foray in Asia began with their launch in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia. The company has around 24 million monthly active users, 6 million of those are paying users. They currently have more than 20 million songs in their catalogue and that number are continuing to grow by 20,000 every day. They have apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and more.

To get a Spotify invite, click here.

Read More

Spinnr offers music streaming service in the Philippines for P29 a month

Spinnr, a subscription-based music streaming service, has just opened its doors to customers in the Philippines. The new music streaming service is a rebrand of Smart Music and its carrier partners which consolidates three brand names into a single, more recognizable one.

What surprised me is how low the pricing is. The Spinnr Plus Premium 30-day subscription only costs P29, the Spinnr Plus 15-day P15, and the Spinnr Plus 7-day P7. A Spinnr Plus VIP subscription lets you listen to their music catalog for 30 days and purchase tracks at 50% less. These pricing are absolutely cheap when you compare it to other (international) services like Spotify.

Just like any other music streaming offering, Spinnr allows you to listen to your music on mobile devices in addition to their desktop website, though their app is only available for Android as of now. Users who have other devices though can access the touch-friendly mobile website using any web browser.

However, the current catalog on Spinnr is only limited to those under MCA and Ivory-Sony Music. We certainly hope they would pursue to sign more deals with other record labels in order to grow their library.

Currently, Spinnr requires a Smart, Sun Cellular, or Talk N text phone number for registration. A 15-day free trial plus five music downloads is being offered for new registrants.

With very affordable subscriptions, Spinnr is bound to succeed. So long as they keep on adding new content to their library.

Read More

Nokia announces $3.99 Music+ subscription service

Nokia recently announced their new Music+ premium subscription. The Nokia Music+ is an upgrade over the existing Mix Radio service which is currently available for free to the Lumia Windows Phone users.

The premium subscription, which will set you back $3.99/€3.99 a month, adds unlimited skipping, higher quality streams, lyrics support which can be displayed in s scrolling list, in a karaoke-style format, or in a static display you can manually scroll.

As with any other premium music subscription service available, the Nokia Music+ also allows unlimited downloads of music which you can play not just on your phone but also on your desktop, TV, and other ‘connected screens’, even when offline.

Nokia says the service will be available starting sometime in the next few weeks.

Source: Nokia

Read More