Canalys has published its 2020 outlook for the Internet-of-things industry. It projected that smart speakers, smart personal audio devices, and wearable bands would see a 9.8% increase in shipments for a total of 718 million units during the year. Smart speakers are forecast to see just 1.5% year-on-year growth. Continue Reading
Blubrry has shared data from its podcast platform, offering a look at how its audiences are responding to the coronavirus pandemic. In this blog post, it only shared figures for aggregate number of downloads. Continue Reading
Tencent may be focusing on Africa as the next market for its Joox streaming service. The platform is already very popular across Asia, including in some emerging markets such as Indonesia and Thailand. Continue Reading
Spain’s music industry could lose at least €100 million ($109 million) due to the global pandemic of COVID-19. Antonio Guisasola, president of industry group Promusicae, gave dire predictions about hits to both physical and streaming revenue in 2020. Continue Reading
Counterpoint Research added its own data to the body of research into music streaming. The company found that global online music streaming subscriptions grew 32% on-year during 2019, reaching a total of 358 million. In its data, Spotify was the leading streaming platform last year. Continue Reading
TikTok may have at least temporarily gotten its ducks in a row for licensing, but music publishers are still threatening legal action. David Israelite, CEO of the National Music Publishers Association, told the Financial Times (paywall) that a lawsuit is a “likely future step.” Continue Reading
Short-form video has been a huge focus for Internet and media culture, and the field could be seeing some shifts. First, TikTok is moving to make its massively popular platform more in line with the major labels. Second, YouTube isn’t going to cede its video crown to the newer rival just yet. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web. Today’s items include a Google Podcasts AMA, some figures from a Russian streaming service, and more of the latest on how the music industry is responding to the coronavirus pandemic. Continue Reading
Anchor, the streamlined podcast creation platform owned by Spotify, announced an update to its analytics tools. The service is adding more metrics for podcasters powered by Spotify. The new charts on the Anchor dashboard are based on data coming from Spotify streams rather than from download counts or from RSS feeds. Continue Reading
Owen Grover departed as Pocket Casts’ CEO at the start of the week, and is already taking the helm at a new operation. He has joined TrueFire Studios, an alliance of online music education companies, as its chief executive. Continue Reading
SoundCloud has been moving aggressively to support independent and grassroots artists in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Today, CEO Kerry Trainor authored a blog post outlining the company’s strategy to help alleviate the financial woes performers are facing. Continue Reading
Acast has released its financial results for last year. The podcasting company doubled its annual revenue from 180 million kroner ($19 million) in 2018 to 361 million kroner ($38 million) in 2019. Revenue growth in the Americas and Europe propelled the company to the strong annual results. Continue Reading