Spotify Signs Exclusive Deal With TeliaSonera Finland
TechCrunch reports that Spotify has signed an exclusive deal with the Finnish side of TeliaSonera. The two year deal will give TeliaSonera the exclusive rights to sell Spotify Premium in Finland. The announcement comes on the same day as TeliaSonera unveils its IPTV service that is complete with a certain selection of television channels, video rentals and Spotify Premium. Spotify signed a similar contract with the Swedish side of TeliaSonera last year and it seems that the deal was worthwhile as the Finnish side of TeliaSonera also went forward with the partnership.
The service offering from TeliaSonera is a direct competitor to Elisa Viihde, while it does not allow recording of television shows that are available in Elisa Viihde. At the moment Sonera Home Television is available to approximately 300 000 of its subscribers that have Sonera optical connection. The service will later be available to those households that are able to handle 24 Mb/s connections by more traditional means. There are about 1.3 million households that fall into this group.
These deals are extremely important for Spotify to grow its reach into the more traditional consumer base. It remains to be seen how the service is adopted there, but its certainly worth the try in the form of partnerships like these.
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I find this sort of operator-specific deals deeply disturbing at many levels. It simply goes against the Finnish tradition of letting the consumer chose its operator independently of the content. It also threatens network neutrality.
I understand that Teliasonera will be the exclusive _telco_ partner to deliver Spotify in Finland so doors would be open to other kinds of partners. Would be happy to hear if someone had more specific information on this.
--Timo
Hi guys,
I'm responsible of Spotify business at Sonera. This is simply a strategic partnership for Spotify and us. Spotify wants music to be everywhere you go and we can provide connections and gadgets to do so. Our cooperation in Sweden has been very successful and it's just natural to spread cooperation to Finland.
Exclusive partnership enables us to do cooperation in more levels then just selling stuff, eg. Spotify will be part of our IP-TV - which something very special.
Petri Pekkarinen
Development Manager / Teliasonera
I find indeterminate references to network neutrality deeply disturbing at many levels. It simply goes against the global tradition of bringing up new services and letting the consumer choose what and how they want to buy them. Having a subscription/handset that “comes with music” or OS with built in turn-by-turn navigation service just bring more options to the game.
Hi Simon,
I think you got this one wrong. We are not reducing options from consumers, actually we are giving more. Consumers can still buy Spotify from Spotify. We just give more options with bundling our products with Spotify. Hence, technical development of Spotify (Ip-tv etc.) will also serve consumer.
Cheers
Petri / Development Manager, Teliasonera
Petri I got your point ok. I was just trying to satirize Martin-Érics post on ill-founded netneutrality worries.
Simon, Petri: you both seem to have missed the point about the meaning of the word "exclusive" in this context.
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