Spotify is partnering with Walmart to offer Walmart+ subscribers six free months of music streaming.
Walmart+ is the national retailer’s answer to Amazon Prime, which provides free two-day shipping and a myriad of other benefits to subscribers. It’s likely Walmart is hoping the added benefit of a music subscription service will entice people to sign up – especially since Amazon Prime offers music streaming.
Starting March 8, new and existing Walmart+ subscribers will receive six months of Spotify Premium for free.
The limited-time offer is available to new and existing members of Walmart+, but only to those who haven’t previously tried Spotify Premium. That’s Spotify wanting to beef up those subscription numbers in 2022, but how many of those free trial members will stick around after six months?
“Our Walmart+ members have told us they’re passionate about music and entertainment, so our collaboration with Spotify is just one more way that we’re bringing value to our Walmart+ membership,” says Chris Cracchiolo, SVP and GM of Walmart+. That’s a lot of words to say Walmart needed a music streaming partner to make its grocery subscription service as competitive as Amazon’s.
Spotify’s share price reached a new 52-week low during trading last week. The SPOT stock traded as low as $135.53 and it has continued its slide into this week. SPOT has lost 46.14% of its value year to date just three months into 2022 and much less than its initial offering of $169 per share when it debuted back in 2018.
Spotify has long sought out hardware partnerships and tie-ins with other companies to help expand its reach. Back in 2019, the company announced an expanded partnership with Samsung to offer new phone owners a free six-month trial of Spotify. Spotify also comes installed as the default music streaming service on all Samsung devices. Much like the Walmart+ deal, Spotify only wanted new accounts only – existing Spotify subscribers are out of luck.
Great, guys! Go ahead and give away decades of my hard work so you can gain new customers while paying me nothing. Great arrangement! You certainly know how to keep the artistic community happy while lining your own pockets!
Thank you