Just five months after Spotify released ‘Car Thing’ to the general public, the company recently announced that it is halting production of the $90 dashboard accessory. Spotify’s decision to stop production of Car Thing was revealed during its Q2 2022 earnings release.
Car Thing, Spotify’s overpriced dashboard accessory, is no longer a thing
Spotify revealed that its gross margins were negatively impacted by its decision to stop manufacturing Car Thing. The company suffered a $31.4 million hit, Tech Crunch reports. Despite its loss in the hardware category, its paid user base is still strong at 188 million. In addition, it announced that its monthly active users grew by 19%, or 19 million, to 433 million in the second quarter of 2022.
Despite the quick demise of Car Thing, a spokesperson for Spotify told Tech Crunch that the company’s first hardware product helped it learn how people listen to audio in cars. These listening trends have given Spotify deeper insight into an area it will continue focusing on in the future.
The goal of Spotify’s Car Thing exploration was to better understand in-car listening, and bring audio to a wider range of users and vehicles. Based on several factors, including product demand and supply chain issues, we have decided to stop further production of Car Thing units. Existing devices will perform as intended. This initiative has unlocked helpful learnings, and we remain focused on the car as an important place for audio.
Car Thing was initially launched in April 2021 to a limited quantity of select users. The dashboard accessory features a thin profile and two prominent buttons on the front and is extremely lightweight and small. Out of the two buttons given, the small button serves as a back button and a larger knob allows you to interact with the touch screen. In addition, Car Play supports the “Hey Spotify” wake command so it can be used hands-free. It also requires a smartphone to function.
Read more:
