Starbucks making baristas the DJ in deal with streaming service Spotify

Months after ditching the sale of CDs in its stores, Starbucks has announced a partnership with Spotify.

The music streaming company will give accounts to its premium service to employees in the US later this year allowing them to create playlists.

Starbucks in turn will promote Spotify's premium service, partly by making the playlists accessible on the coffee chain's smartphone app.

The coffee chain will then roll out the tie-up to stores in Canada and the UK.

The deal marks the first time that Starbucks will link its loyalty program to a third party.

Spotify users will be offered the chance to earn "stars" that go towards free coffees and snacks at the coffee chain.

"We are reinventing the way our millions of global customers discover music," Howard Schultz, the chairman and chief executive officer of Starbucks, said in a statement.

The partnership will start later this year at Starbucks' 7,000 company-owned stores in the US before being rolled out in Canada and the UK.

Starbucks was once seen by the music industry as a great hope for selling CDs, with a selection offered on racks as customers waited for their coffees.

In 2004, Starbucks also introduced a burning service in select stores, allowing customers to select tracks to make their own discs.

But in March Starbucks stopped selling CDs, saying that it was exploring new options.

In 2014, streaming overtook CD sales in revenue generation for the first time in the US, by far the world's largest music market.

However, streaming has caught on at different paces around the world.

CDs remain the preferred format in Germany and Japan, while Nordic countries have embraced streaming.

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