Wired
Even in the fastest growing market, not everything goes smoothly. Spotify has announced the discontinuation of its first hardware device, the Car Thing.
End of production in just 5 months
“Car Thing” is Spotify’s in-vehicle hardware, targeting users who can’t use Apple’s CarPlay, and was able to easily enjoy music and podcasts by attaching it to the dashboard.
The product, announced in April 2021, began selling in the United States in February 2022 at $ 89.99 (about 12,000 yen), but sales did not reach the expected level, and it took only 5 months. has been discontinued.
Clearly from the financial results announcement
The end of production for the Car Thing was revealed in Spotify’s earnings release, which included a development cost of 31 million euros (about 4.2 billion yen) and a drop in profits due to the discontinuation of production.
According to Apple’s engineering manager, 98% of new cars in the US are equipped with CarPlay, so the Car Thing may have originally targeted a limited number of consumers.
Spotify told the news site TechCrunch that it had decided to stop production due to “product demand and supply chain issues,” and said that devices that have already been sold will continue to work as usual.
The automotive software market is growing rapidly and is estimated to continue growing at an annual rate of 9% until 2030. It is believed that the next-generation CarPlay announced by Apple at WWDC22 will also be redesigned with such market expansion and further cooperation with iOS products in mind.
Source: MacRumors, TechCrunch
(kihachi)
Source: iPhone Mania