AT&T and Beats Music rolled out a music service during the Super Bowl. AT&T is taking on Pandora, Spotify and Apple iTunes.
Bloomberg reports that "Music-streaming services need 5 million to 10 million paying customers to be profitable after paying licensing fees to rights holders, according to Roger Entner, an analyst with Recon Analytics in Boston."
The cellcos are losing ground (and margin) to OTT (over-the-top) companies like Spotify, WhatsApp, Snalchat and more. AT&T has been funding hack-a-thons for a couple of years to get an app store off the ground.
AT&T is not just fighting VZW but T-Mobile for subscribers.
IMS was supposed to be the avenue for OTT money, but that hasn't paid off yet either.
We'll see if this one small step pays off.