Increase Business Hardware, Spotify Smoke Smart Speaker?

Until now, Spotify is known as an app company that provides music streaming services.

However, the latest news said the company plans to explore the hardware business (hardware).

This information is known from the vacancy job opened by Spotify some time ago the vacancy seems to indicate the company is looking for experts in the field of hardware.

Spotify plans work on the hardware seen from the description for Operation Manager-Hardware Project. In the description, the company claimed to plan to make its first physical product.

"Spotify is developing the first physical product and preparing to set up an organization to operate the business, from manufacturing, supply chain, including sales and marketing," the company said.

Although not yet certain hardware model that will be released Spotify, there is the possibility of the Swedish company plans to introduce smart speakers.

Because, in the job description, this brand-new device with regard to hardware that can be connected.

Nevertheless, did not close the possibility Spotify plans to release other devices, such as headphones or smartwatch. Therefore, it is interesting to await the immediate announcement of the company.

The news about Spotify's plans for hardware development has been heard since a few months ago. At that time, reports say the company is rumored to be developing a device similar to Amazon Echo or Pebble Watch.

Spotify paid subscribers continue to grow. The number rose from 60 million in July 2017 to 70 million paid subscribers earlier this year.

Reported by The Verge, Spotify announced the latest number of paid subscribers through their official Twitter account. "Hello 70 million subscribers," Spotify wrote.

Unfortunately, Spotify does not announce the total active users it has at this time. However, the number in June last year reached 140 million.

This new achievement makes Spotify stronger in the music streaming industry. Spotify is far superior to one of its main rivals, Apple Music, which has more than 30 million paid subscribers as of September 2017.

Amid its popularity, Spotify recently reportedly is finalizing plans to floor on the stock market. Spotify is predicted to go public in the near future and has also filed a document for Initial Public Offering (IPO).

In the midst of growth, Spotify can not be separated from various problems. The latest case, the Swedish company was sued by the label Wixen Music Publishing Inc. because allegedly using thousands of songs without permission and do not provide compensation.

Some of the singers whose songs were used without permission were Tom Perry with the song "Free Fallin", "Light My Fire" belonging to The Doors, "Weezer's Wehealth Girl," to Stevie Nicks. In addition, there are also thousands of Wixen songs used by Spotify without a license.

Wixen's lawsuit against Spotify reached US $ 1.6 billion or around Rp 21.6 trillion.

In his lawsuit in California federal court, Wixen called Spotify failed to obtain a compulsory license from Wixen that enabled him to reproduce and distribute the songs.