Is Microsoft planning to buy Spotify?

[Windows Central Question]

I went to Microsoft store today in downtown Vancouver and was talking about the demise of groove music and switching users to Spotify and then the store employee mentioned that Microsoft might be considering to buy Spotify. I didn't like the idea since Spotify doesn't make money and tried to convince him but he said there is some possibility. So, this question came to my mind, is Microsoft planning to acquire Spotify?

 

[LightenSkies]

Hell no. Then Spotify will shut down to just like groove. no though that be bad marketing to sudden shut down groove then buy Spotify. Many people prefer groove over Spotify. Well at least users on pc and mobile.

 

[xandros9]

If so, I don't think a store rep would know about it.

MS is cutting down on consumer-facing things so I don't see a Spotify acquisition even fitting in that trend.

 

[etphoto]

If MS bought Spotify it would on be for it's customers. It already had a music service and got rid of it. Groove app was pretty good and I hate the Spotify app.

 

[beman39]

Yeah, Spotify works horribly on WM10, and why would they buy Spotify after getting rid of groove... Obviously the ms employee has no idea what he's talking about. Now I wouldn't be surprised and hoping that Spotify will improve its WM version so it csn run better on our phones!

 

[etphoto]

It would have been smarter of MS to keep Groove, buy Spotify, and then slowly merge the two using the Groove app.

 

[DOGC_Kyle]

MS isn't cutting consumer products, they're cutting less-profitable products.

Music streaming alone isn't profitable, at least not in its current form. If customers pay $10 a month and listen to 10 songs a day (which isn't even very much), that's only a third of a cent per song. That third of a cent has to cover hosting (on Spotify's servers), marketing, customer service, development teams, office space, legal costs, and of course, the actual licensing of the music.
I'm sure Spotify makes deals to maximize their profits and minimize expenses, and it does scale in their favour with a lot of users, but that can only go so far. Especially when you consider that most (?) of their users don't even pay, it's just ads. And they regularly offer promotions to get it even cheaper (I've seen 99 cents for 3 months? How is that even possible, when a single song costs that much anywhere else?)

I really don't think it's of benefit to MS to buy Spotify. The only reason would be because it's a well-known brand.

 

[vEEP pEEP]

Since they have been hating on consumers - very unlikely. The killed Groove because it could not compete against it.
I wonder if Spotify has any tech of use for MS. I really hope they don't drop Cortana. I just save the Invoke for the first time - cool!