SiriusXM CEO: I Don't See Spotify As A Direct Competitor

Sirius XM Holdings Inc. SIRI is one of the companies that makes you sit back and take notice. Not because it is doing some unique innovations, but simply for that fact that being a satellite radio company it manages to keep itself relevant in this day and age of music streaming services.

 

Jim Meyer, CEO of SiriusXM, was recently interviewed by CNBC’s David Faber on the company’s own music streaming service and the kind of competition it is facing with other streaming platforms.

 

“I don’t see streaming as a competitor, I see streaming as a technology” Meyer said. “There are companies that stream that compete with us obviously, but what I love about this evolution slash revolution that’s taking place is it gives a great opportunity to combine all the benefits of broadcast and certainly all the benefits of IP and combine it together in one, what we think is going to be a very easy to use consumer facing experience designed for the vehicle, that’s the key […].”

 

When asked about the partnership between BMW and Spotify, Meyer said, “I don’t know about that, I mean for instance Spotify directly I actually don’t see as a direct competitor, I think their $10 a month is more coming out of the download business, coming out of the packaged media business. You want to go where I really see our competition; everybody talks about streaming services, its terrestrial radio […]”

 

Meyer cited that there are 220 million people who listen to terrestrial radio everyday and he considers it to be the primary competition of SiriusXM. He also revealed that two third of SiriusXM customers has reported listening to “other audio” every week.