Over 16 Million Tracks On-Demand now Available in Australia
Sydney, Australia – 22 May 2012 – Western Digital®, is ensuring that music fans in Australia have an opportunity to experience Spotify® through their WD TV media players today, coinciding with the launch of the music service already hugely popular in thirteen countries around the world. With Spotify, WD TV media player users will be able to stream over 16 million tracks on-demand, changing the way they discover, manage and share music with their friends, family and social networking circles.
WD TV Live™ and WD TV Live Hub™ media players are among the first in Australia to deliver Spotify’s acclaimed music service, bringing the web-based service into the home. Spotify Premium subscribers can now enjoy unlimited on-demand access to Spotify’s catalog at superior sound quality (up to 320kbps) on their home entertainment system.
The WD TV media player family already has an impressive range of premium online content offerings including YouTube, DailyMotion, Vimeo, PlayJam, Picasa Web Albums, TuneIn Radio and MLB.TV. With the addition of Spotify, the power of the versatile device grows stronger, allowing it to truly become a central hub for all home entertainment needs.
WD incorporates Spotify’s popular features including the ability to create and manage playlists, share songs with friends, as well as see and subscribe to friends’ playlists via their Spotify profiles. Users can also share tracks by sending songs directly to the inbox of other Spotify users. Spotify for WD TV Live and WD TV Live Hub delivers an exciting new way to enjoy and share music on the best sound system in your home.
“Spotify has proven to be a very popular service in many areas of the world, and our WD TV media player customers in Australia now have access to this innovative service through their home entertainment systems,” said Craig Davis, APAC Sales & Marketing Director, WD Branded Products. “Providing our Australian customers with a comprehensive entertainment experience that includes seamless streaming of personal media and the best of the Internet makes WD TV media players the most versatile device on the market.”
Pascal de Mul, Global Head of Hardware Partnerships, Spotify, commented: “We’re really excited to make further steps into the living room with streaming media players from WD which, from today, offer the full Spotify streaming catalog in a truly innovative TV-focused user experience.”
WD TV media players allow users to enjoy personal media such as music, video and photos on their home entertainment systems. Supporting a wide range of file formats, content can be streamed from any connected USB drive, digital camcorder or camera, network drive (such as the My Book® Live™ personal cloud storage) and any networked PC or Mac computer in the home.
Price and Availability
The WD TV Live streaming media player and WD TV Live Hub media center can be purchased at select retailers and online at www.wdstore.com.au. MSRP for the WD TV Live streaming media player is A$ 189.99. MSRP for the WD TV Live Hub 1 TB is A$ 469.99.
About WD
WD, a storage industry pioneer and long-time leader, provides products and services for people and organizations that collect, manage and use digital information. The company designs and produces reliable, high-performance hard drives and solid state drives that keep users’ data accessible and secure from loss. Its storage technologies serve a wide range of host applications including client and enterprise computing, embedded systems and consumer electronics, as well as its own storage systems. Its home entertainment products enable rich engagement with stored digital content.
WD was founded in 1970. The company’s products are marketed to leading OEMs, systems manufacturers, selected resellers and retailers under the Western Digital®, WD® and HGST™ brand names. Visit the Investor section of the company’s website (www.westerndigital.com) to access a variety of financial and investor information.
About Spotify
Spotify is an award-winning digital music service that gives you on-demand access to millions of songs. Spotify makes it easier than ever to discover, manage and share music with your friends, while making sure that artists get a fair deal. Since its launch in Sweden in 2008, Spotify has become the largest and most successful music service of its kind, with over 10 million active users and over 3 million paying subscribers. Spotify is now available in fifteen countries around the world, including Australia, New Zealand, US, UK, Sweden, France, Spain, Netherlands, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and Germany.