Close

Samsung Milk Music Officially Shuts Down

The Korean tech giant is making its way out of the music streaming business. Samsung’s very own music streaming service – Milk Music – has officially shut down and will be unavailable in the US.

Samsung's Milk Music is officially shut down in the US.

Samsung's Milk Music is officially shut down in the US.

When Samsung launched its very own music streaming service just two years ago as an alternative to ad-supported services such as Spotify and Pandora, it was actively promoted on all the Galaxy devices across the world. However, with the emergence and aggressive advertising by the streaming giants which include Spotify and Apple Music, Milk Music has within a short period of time lost its place in the market. It laid off much of its staff last July a few months before closing Milk Video, a video streaming service which lasted only a year.

The South Korean company announced in August that it will be shutting down its service on 22 September. The same statement mentioned that Milk is being closed down to “invest in a partner model focused on seamlessly integrating the best music services available today into our family of Galaxy devices.”

It’s efforts continues to loose foothold in the market even after signing a $25 million exclusive deal with Rihanna last October. The company was also rumoured to have plans to buy Jay Z’s Tidal streaming service early this year.

Milk Music users who are still subscribed under this service will now get a free 14-day trial for Slacker Plus, the streaming service that has been powering Milk Music since the very beginning. Thereafter, however, the Plus version will cost $3.99 a month.

In an official statement by CEO of Slacker Radio – Duncan Orrell-Jones: “While we’re not commenting on Samsung’s decision to no longer support Milk Music, our hope is that the impact on users will be minimal. Milk Music has always been powered by Slacker Radio, and by switching over to Slacker, music fans can continue to enjoy the same personalised listening experience they’ve come to love through our unique programming, storytelling and curated stations.”

Milk Music is cited to be operating still in countries like China and South Korea, its home turf. Samsung might not be abandoning the service completely, however, it’s only a matter of time before much will be revealed.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *