Spotify losing money

THE LONG & SHORT OF IT: The good news is that Spotify had $236 million in revenue last year, a 140% jump from the $99 million it reported for 2010. The bad news was that the company still posted a sizable net loss—$56.6 million—up from $42 million in 2010 and $26 million in 2009. These numbers come from documents filed with regulators in Luxembourg, where Spotify's holding company is based, and reported in reported in the Wall Street Journal. Up to now, the company's losses have been financed by its owners, but Spotify will reportedly try to raise more $200 million-plus in a round of financing that would value it at up to $4 billion." The question of when we'll show a profit actually feels irrelevant," Daniel Ek said earlier this year. "Our focus is entirely on growth. It is priority one, two, three, four and five." The filing also said the company had 32.8 million registered users in 15 countries at the end of 2011, 12% of them paying subscribers. "Offering both a basic free and fully featured paid-for service has been instrumental to what we've achieved so far, both in fighting piracy and convincing millions of people to pay for music,” Spotify said in a statement. “Over 15 million people now actively use the service worldwide, with 4 million of them now paying. That's a pretty phenomenal following for a music service still in its relative infancy." (8/24a)