Catch me if you can: Spotify is still holding on to the top spot in music streaming

9/2/21 8:00PM

The other streaming wars

‍Netflix, Disney and about 20 other companies might be locked in the battle for video streaming right now, but there's another streaming battle that's heating up — in the music industry.

‍Catch me if you can

‍Despite having a few little tech companies competing with them, Spotify has done an impressive job of maintaining its lead, with the Swedish company topping 165 million paid subscribers in its most recent quarter.

That's ahead of Apple which has 78m and Amazon Music which has 63m subscribers (according to Midia estimates from earlier this year). YouTube's offering, which includes both YouTube Music and YouTube Premium (confusing, we know) is even further behind, this week crossing the 50m milestone for the first time.

‍Running out of ideas?

‍Spotify's big push into podcasts, with multiple acquisitions and high-profile exclusivity deals with hosts like Joe Rogan and Alex Cooper have helped differentiate them from their competition. Unfortunately, the company appears to be running out of ideas — greenlighting a share buyback programme worth around $1bn a few weeks ago. That's money that surely would have been better spent on growing the user base or acquiring more exclusive audio content... unless you've run out of ideas.

Rani Molla21h

OpenAI’s models are officially coming to Amazon

Amazon is finally getting in on the hottest ticket in tech.

After Microsoft announced yesterday that it has agreed to give up its exclusive rights to sell OpenAI’s models, Amazon, as expected, will start offering them to customers — something Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman says users have been asking for “for a really long time.” Some models are available now in preview, and the most powerful GPT versions will show up “in the coming weeks.”

This is a big shift in the AI cloud wars. Microsoft’s early bet on OpenAI gave Azure an edge by locking up the most in-demand models. Now that exclusivity is gone, Amazon and other competitors can finally offer them too, closing a key gap and competing more directly for AI customers.

Amazon Set to Sell OpenAI Tech After Microsoft Cedes Exclusivity

Claire Yubin Oh23h

Ship-tracking app surges as Iran war continues

As Middle East peace talks stretch on, with Tehran reportedly offering to reopen the Strait of Hormuz if the US lifts its blockade and the war ends, the owner of shipping intelligence platform MarineTraffic revealed that the app has gained millions of new users since the conflict began.

MarineTraffic’s user count jumped to 8.5 million this April, up from 3.5 million a year ago, the cofounder of its parent company, Kpler, said in an interview with the Financial Times. Paid subscribers, often workers within companies and governments looking for more data on supply chains and commodities trading, rose 11,000 in the same period.

Kpler, which also owns shipping intelligence platform FleetMon, draws its data from a range of sources, including the Automatic Identification System, satellites, and more than 500 people on-site, like port terminal operators.

Per Appfigures data, MarineTraffic is estimated to have raked in almost $1 million across March and April in app revenue (through April 27), more than double the ~$346,500 from the same months last year. Across the full year, Kpler expects to earn between $300 million and $400 million in annual recurring revenues.

Rani Molla

pedal to the meta

4/28/26

Meta could be getting ready to post its highest revenue growth since 2021

Meta’s outlook and analyst estimates suggest more than 30% revenue growth in Q1.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg visits U.S. Capitol for Senate meetings

Tom Jones4/28/26

Google will supply AI models to Pentagon in classified deal, per The Information

Google has become the latest tech company to ink an agreement to supply the Department of Defense (War) with AI, having reportedly closed a classified deal that allows the Pentagon to use its AI for “any lawful government purpose,” according to The Information.

The Information initially reported talks between the Alphabet-owned company and the US government around two weeks ago, following the messy breakdown of the relationship between Anthropic and the Trump administration — and the rushed OpenAI deal that took its place.

The move has reportedly sparked opposition among Google employees, with The Washington Post reporting that over 600 workers signed a letter to CEO Sundar Pichai to ask him to bar the Defense Department from using the company’s AI models for any classified work.