Watch Sten Garmark from Spotify speak about his strategy of Spotify’s “Ubiquity”at the Global Trends Festival 2020

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During the last fifteen years, Spotify has conquered the entire world. Currently, more than 300 million people use the app. There is no doubt that the Swedes’ success would not be possible without the smartphone revolution that took place around the globe during the last few years. Sten Garmark - Spotify’s VP of Product - knows that this is not enough. He wants the music from the app to be available on all the home appliances.

Spotify’s “Ubiquity”

Creators of the app that delivers the audio content know that smartphones are not enough anymore, the competition in the form of Apple Music never sleeps. They want to be even closer to their users. In May last year, Sten Garmark said that delivering audio content became more intuitive and seamless, and the ubiquity strategy refers to providing a totally seamless experience with Spotify.

- In other words, Spotify is at the users’ fingertips all the time. Our services are available while driving or working out, we are always there. The final stage of our ubiquity will be reached when Spotify adjusts to multiple devices surrounding the users, additionally when the app will get to know the users well enough, they would not need to search for music or podcasts suitable for a given moment - all that will be timely provided - says Garmark.

Garmark indicated that the strategy was based mainly on smartphone users as they are principle Spotify clients. However, this is just a starting point, the Swedes want to allow the users to listen to Spotify’s content in totally new circumstances. In Sten Garmark’s opinion, the company needs to implement a technical integration with all the devices surrounding the users, e.g. voice-activated speakers.

- We need to provide simple solutions for everyone: our users, partners and artists. It must not be too complicated. We want to decrease the amount of effort for the user to navigate the app in order to allow also the less technologically savvy users to enjoy it. Let's remember that currently we need to take five steps to navigate Spotify. The question is: can we remove those steps totally? - Garmark says.

Spotify underlines that they want to deliver a “turnkey app”. The objective of the changes is to diminish the time necessary to navigate and find favorite content. In 2013 the company launch Spotify Connect. It is a form of a remote control to play music and podcasts on your TV, game consoles and speakers. It allows to stream music on multiple devices inside and outside of your home.

Spotify Connect is available on 2000 products of 200 brands. The service is available to all users, not only Premium. The way it works is also easy. One just needs to open the app on a phone or laptop, select the title of the song, and then just chose another device. Everything just one click away.

- After pairing your device with Spotify connect you will never ask your wife again: where's the remote? - Sten Garmark summarizes.

Garmark himself is also responsible for patenting over 20 solutions. One of the latest patented solutions consists of content selection based on physiological aspects. The app uses at least one body measurement (e.g. heart rate) and selects content accordingly. Another patented solution is playlist creation based on the rhythm of selected songs. This is how the app knows what the user likes to listen to.

Spotify conquest

Spotify was created in 2006. In the second quarter of the current year, the number of users got close to 300 million. One of the aspects that could have attracted more people where the podcasts. This was something that differentiated the Swedish company from Apple and Amazon which also offer audio content solutions, but this is only their additional activity. At the beginning of 2019, Spotify acquired Gimlet and Anchor - service providers that specialize in podcasts. The objective of this acquisition was to supplement the company's portfolio and convert Spotify into one of the biggest podcast producers. Gimlet contributed with one of the best podcast studios, and Anchor with a platform for podcast creators.

– Those acquisitions significantly accelerated our path to becoming the leading global audio platform, which provides users all over the world with access to best podcasts as well as improving the quality of our content - says Daniel Ek, Spotify CEO.

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