23/11/2009

The growth of music streaming service Spotify could be stunted by the very nature of the program.

A lack of real portability coupled with users not being able to own what they are listening to were found to be two major reasons for the speculation.

Jonathan Shingler, a research analyst at consumer electronics, sales information and IT consulting firm GfK Technology, said he did not think Spotify would challenge iTunes' dominance 'due to the lack of robust mobile internet access, premium music users preferring to own their music and iTunes being far advanced in other services it provides'.

However, Mr Shingler said that the nature of Spotify meant that it was primed to outstrip iTunes in terms of streaming content, as the Apple product only offers a few seconds clip for content rather than the whole song as on Spotify.

Last week, a study by GfK found that 11 per cent of people who streamed or downloaded music used Spotify, making it the fourth largest in the market behind iTunes, Amazon and RealPlayer.