Sweden—Home to a global music streaming giant

Article Excerpt

Spotify is a Swedish audio streaming and media service provider founded in April 2006 by Daniel Ek (the CEO) and Martin Lorentzon (the CFO). The primary listing of Spotify is in Sweden and there is also a secondary listing in the U.S. in the form of American depositary receipts (ADRs). The market value of the company is about $98 billion. Spotify streams music in 180 countries, and has 700 million monthly active users plus 250 million paying subscribers. This makes the company the leader in music streaming ahead of competitors Tencent Music, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music. Spotify offers a freemium business model (basic services are free, while additional features are offered via paid subscriptions). Meanwhile, the company also generates revenue by selling premium streaming subscriptions to users and advertising placements to third parties. Spotify gets its content from major record labels as well as independent artists and pays copyright holders royalties for streaming music. The company pays 70% of its total…