Spotify tops 2.5 million U.S. paying subscribers post-U.S. launch
Streaming music giant Spotify now has more than 2.5 million paying subscribers worldwide, after the company expanded to the United States earlier this year.
The company, which launched in the U.S. in July after two years of negotiations with the music industry, attained the 2 million subscriber milestone in September, gaining over half a million users since its U.S. launch.
Co-founder Daniel Ek said he expressed "price and excitement" at the milestone, as the company is still in its infancy, launched only five years ago in 2006.
The Swedish founded, but UK headquartered business first set up seemingly in reverse to many major technology companies, by rolling out its music streaming service to European users, and then earlier this year to U.S. citizens.
On the company blog, it said:
"This week is Thanksgiving in the US. And we’ve got our own reasons to give thanks too.
Fanfare! Drum roll! Yes, we’re excited to announce that we’ve now welcomed 2.5 million paying subscribers to the service.
So we’d like to say a big thank you to all our subscribers, new and old. Keep spreading the good news about Spotify!"
The music service's deep integration with Facebook has also perpetuated its growth, after the social networking giant announced in September that the move would allow users to listen to Spotify music through the site. It is estimated that the integration with Facebook's 800 million users helped push the streaming music service past the five million user mark.
But controversy stirred within the few few days of its launch, after Spotify had to justify its 'frictionless sharing' requirement, whereby users would have the songs they listened to published automatically to the social network.
Revenues for 2010 increased to $98 million up from $17.5 million the year before. Subscription revenues were marked at $70 million and advertising at $28 million.
Spotify has struggled with a series of losses after the company had to shell out a large proportion of its generated revenue in royalty payments and licenses to copyright holders.
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