We7, a British based music streaming company, has finally launched their iPhone app for premium subscribers, allowing them to listen to their on the go for a monthly flat fee.
The launch signals We7 are financially and logistically ready to support a large influx of mobile users and take on the music streaming market leader Spotify. In our previous coverage of the company, We7 CEO Steve Purdham had explained that the company were in no rush to submit the software to the App Store despite already completing development of the app. Purdham mentioned that at that time marketing and support costs would be too high and that it would possibly drive too many new customers to the service without an architecture to support them.
Until January, We7 was solely a free service. We7 then implemented their premium music service, introducing a two tier system for subscribers (our coverage is located here). Subscribers would be able to remove advertising elements from the service for £4.99 per month, whereas a £9.99 monthly Premium service would allow users to remove advertising and make them eligible to listen to music via their mobile device.
Now that the app has been approved, subscribers to the Premium service will be able to download the We7 iPhone app but will not see it fully functional until March 1st. There are reports that Blackberry and Android apps are also in development.
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Purdham was quoted in an interview with Music Ally:
“It’s outstanding to be able to create a playlist on your PC and instantly refresh your iPhone display to see it appear, then press the Off-line button to take all your favourite songs with you on the train, plane, car or just your mate’s house.”
The release of the We7 iPhone app will inevitably pit it up against Spotify who already have streaming apps on a variety of smartphones. Spotify currently offer their streaming service to six major European countries whereas We7 only cater to the UK market.
With music streaming comes high music label and bandwidth costs. We7 will hope that the release of their iPhone app will instigate a dramatic rise of premium subscriptions, pushing them way beyond their 2.5 million unique monthly users and eclipsing the market share Spotify hold in the UK.
Should Spotify be worried? You bet.
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