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Spotify has over 2m UK users, 2 per cent are paid subscribers

Posted by Katherine Hannaford on Mon 7 Sep 2009

We chat exclusively to Spotify founder Daniel Ek

Today, the unthinkable occurred: Apple welcomed the Spotify application into the open arms of its App Store, joining the Google Android platform in giving premium account subscribers unlimited access to the six million songs in Spotify's catalogue.

 

- Check out our hands-on preview here

 

Speaking to T3.com, Spotify confirmed to us that they now have over 2 million users within the UK, and close to 4.5 million across Europe. The Swedish company, headed up by Daniel Ek, adds around 10,000 new tracks each day, available for free streaming to anyone who'll put up with various adverts in between songs. Alternatively, users can cough up £9.99 a month for a non-advert supported account.

 

"The underlying business has changed from being about ownership to an access model where all the world's music can be offered in the cloud", Ek told us. "Our dream is to let everyone listen to whatever they want, whenever and wherever they want".

 

Acknowledging that it's not just Apple's iTunes which poses as a competitor to Spotify, Ek confirmed "people who pirate music are beginning to see a better alternative, one where music is simpler to access and is 100% clean and legal".

 

Spotify is hoping to launch in the US before the end of the year, and will rely mainly on word of mouth as a marketing tool for targeting new users over there. This will largely be down to Twitter, which Ek thinks is "amazing how quickly it has entered the zeitgeist".

 

Currently, only about 2 per cent of users pay for a subscription account, though once the iPhone and Android apps gain traction that figure will jump up drastically.

 

Link: Spotify

 

 

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