Shazam takes away Spotify support in certain countries, in favor of Deezer

Shazam

Shazam released an update the other week on both iOS and Android, introducing Deezer support for finding songs tagged while out and about. What wasn't made clear was that Shazam would in fact be pulling Spotify support, which is also a popular destination for locating, purchasing and enjoying content. Counties affected include the UK, Germany, Mexico and Brazil.

Many users relied on the Spotify integration with Shazam once they've tagged tracks they like on their smartphones. Removing the ability to head into Spotify and automatically select desired tracks has really hit home with the user base. To make matters worse, it appears only the free version of Shazam is affected, while Shazam Encore appears to be working perfectly with Spotify. Go figure, folks.

It's strange to see the likes of Deezer and Rdio included, while Spotify is left for premium users. Shazam CRO, Kevin McGurn, did release a statement to TechCrunch on the matter:

"The streaming space is getting extremely competitive and we are excited to see a lot of companies in this space interested in working with Shazam. Every country is different and is its own market and its own opportunity, which is why streaming companies – as well as Shazam – need to take a country-by-country approach as we evaluate integration."

Taking into account the quote above, Shazam support staff wrote on the support pages: "In Germany, Mexico, UK and Brazil we're currently offering Deezer playback instead of Spotify within the free app. We're currently trialling different streaming partners to see which are used by more of our users. Spotify integration (which we're currently working on to improve) may be returned at a later date."

It's a strange move for the company, but we're sure Spotify support will return. Either that or Shazam risks losing a large proportion of users in affected markets.