Spotify's accounts dissected, losses revealed

Spotify - money talks
Spotify - money talks

The finances of Spotify have been put online, with the company posting a £16.6 million loss in 2009.

Although the figures revealed don't quite paint an overall picture of Spotify, they do show how it is performing in the UK.

According to Music Ally, who acquired the sums, after tax Spotify posted a £16.6 million loss but it did manage to increase the amount of people using the service sevenfold.

At the beginning of 2009, there were 1 million users and by the end there were 7,000,000.

Out of these seven million, 250,000 were paid subscribers.

Groundwork laid

Spotify has released a statement regarding the numbers, which notes that 2009 was a pivotal year and there is more expansion to come.

"2009 saw us focus on establishing a new and innovative music service and bringing it to millions of people across Europe," explains Spotify.

"The groundwork laid in our launch year has been crucial to the significant achievements made in 2010. Further strengthening and expansion of the service remains our top priority."

In 2009, the revenue model for the service was balanced more in the favour of subscriptions.

It was found that 40 per cent of revenue (£4.51 million) was from advertising while 60 per cent of revenue (£6.81 million) was from subscriptions.

The losses posted may be the reason that Spotify's much-mooted expansion into the US hasn't happened yet.

Via TechCrunch

Marc Chacksfield

Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.