Spotify reaches one million paying subscribers, still not available in U.S.

By Aemon Malone Published March 8, 2011

Europe-based streaming music service Spotify has announced that it has signed up its one millionth paying customer. It’s the second big milestone for Spotify in less than a year.

Note that’s one million subscribers who are paying for the service. Just about six months after launching two years ago, Spotify celebrated one million total members. The service is available as both a free and as a paid subscription service.

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Spotify’s paid “premium” service removes ads and offers better audio quality than its free service. Spotify also offers a mobile app version of its service on the iPhone, Android, Palm and Symbian.

In September, Spotify announced its total membership was around 10 million. That means that it has about 9 million free users — 90 percent of its total members.

A major weakness for Spotify thus far has been a lack of presence in the States. The service is currently only available for European countries including Finland, France, Norway, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The company hasn’t announced any specific plans to expand its services to other countries, but rumors have been circulating that it may be close to a deal for a U.S. launch.

A report released this week promises a golden era for music subscription services, with revenue for the digital music industry potentially topping $20 billion 2015. Even so, reports indicate that Spotify has yet to achieve profitability — it reportedly lost $26 million in 2009. A U.S. expansion would likely give the company a much needed influx of cash in the form of another million or so subscribers.

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