Samsung's Harman Launches Drops, a Short-Clip Music App, With Universal Among Its Partners
Harman, the audio company owned by Samsung Electronics, has launched a music discovery app called Drops, and Universal Music Group is one of its backers. Harman announced the launch on November 9, 2026, according to Music Business Worldwide. The app is available on iOS and Android in the US, on an invite-only basis with a waitlist.
The idea is built around short clips. Drops lets users listen to song clips lasting between 10 and 30 seconds, shared by friends and what the app calls tastemakers, the people whose recommendations others follow. Each clip appears with lyrics, album artwork, licensed artist images and a caption.
Users can save clips to personal collections, follow other users and send a Drops to friends inside the app. When a clip catches someone's ear, the app connects to Apple Music, Qobuz and TIDAL so the listener can move on to the full-length track. Spotify was not among the streaming services named for the launch.
The app has five supporting companies: Universal Music Group, Beggars Group, Symphonic Distribution, EMPIRE and UnitedMasters. Universal is the only one of the three major music companies named as a partner. Sony Music and Warner Music Group were not listed.
Drops also uses three data providers, LyricFind, Xperi and MusicBrainz, which supply the lyrics and music information shown alongside each clip. Clare Hunter is General Manager of Drops at Harman.
For listeners, the pitch is simple: hear a short piece of a song, then decide whether to hear the rest. For the labels and distributors involved, it is another place where a short clip can lead to a full play on a paid service. Whether that leads to more streams is a question the launch does not answer, and the company has not yet said how many people have joined the waitlist.
Anyone who wants in will need an invitation first. The app's invite-only rollout means the first users are likely to be the people already sharing music with each other, and that is the group Drops is built around.
