From CNET: The nation's fourth-largest wireless carrier is shifting its music-streaming partner to Napster, formerly Rhapsody, from Spotify.
It doesn't offer Sprint customers a special deal or preload Napster's app on their phones, but it combines billing onto the phone owner's mobile plan.
The alliance is most meaningful for Napster, more so than for Sprint or Spotify. Napster, which is far behind Spotify in number of subscribers, has greater access to Sprint's 60 million customers. For Sprint, the partnership may means some beneficial tweaks in terms, but the deal doesn't break new ground. Music partnerships along these lines are standard for carriers today, leaving rival services to elbow each other out whenever a big contract comes up for grabs.
But in the last two years, Spotify has relied on its unique free-listening option as its most powerful tool to recruit new members, rather the carrier partnerships that propelled its early years of growth. Napster has taken up the mantle of pursuing partnership to grow.
Spotify said in September that it has 40 million paying subscribers, versus Rhapsody's 3.5 million as of last December.
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