Spotify logo (Photo : Reuters)
Starbucks announced on May 18, Monday, that it will team up with Spotify, a music streaming service. The coffee shop giant's deal with Spotify will create in-store custom playlists for its over 7,000 locations in the United States.
Starbucks was once a leading outlet for the music industry's new releases. However, company decided to stop selling CDs in late March.
Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz referred to Spotify as a top-notch streaming platform. The company is reinventing the way its millions of worldwide customers discover music.
The Starbucks-Spotify partnership will start at Starbucks stores in the autumn. Through crowdsourcing, customers and employees will be able to select the songs for the shops' music playlists. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said that the deal is "making the barista the D.J."
Spotify will also be incorporated into the Starbucks mobile app. The smartphone app has about 16 million U.S. users.
In addition, the approximately 150,000 Starbucks employees will also receive free subscriptions this summer for Spotify's premium service, according The New York Times. The price tag is regularly $10 per month.
Spotify customers will also benefit from the deal. They will receive the chance to collect points in My Starbucks Rewards, the coffee shop king's customer loyalty program.
The in-store promotion will be critical for Spotify, which will compete with the upcoming Apple streaming music service. It could be launched as early as June.
Starbucks and Spotify have referred to their new partnership as the launch of a game-changing "music ecosystem," according to Wired. They have promised to release more details about the deal soon.
Spotify is available in 58 countries. It has 15 million paying subscribers, and 45 million free subscribers.
