Ask the editor is the spot where we try to answer readers’ questions.
Q: Is Spotify ever going to be available in the US?
Bill Swift
A: While we’re not privy to the current negotiations between the Swedish streaming service and the major labels in the US, we’d have to say the answer is ‘probably’.
While the company has done extremely well to get itself recognised across Europe, the US is still a closed book, with no deal yet in place that grants Spotify licence from all four of the major record labels: Universal, Warner Music, Sony and EMI.
But Spotify has announced recently that it may not need the cooperation of all four labels for an initial launch. It’s understood that Sony and EMI may have already come to an agreement, and if so, they may go ahead with just one more. With minimum hardware requirements, the company could in theory launch a national service just weeks after suitable agreements are in place.
There have also been reports, notably in Billboard, that the company is in the process of staffing a US office – which at least shows confidence in an imminent US launch.
Spotify is currently in the midst of a $10million fundraising exercise and it has revealed that 15 per cent of its customers now pay for the service – that makes for a million subscribers paying the equivalent of £10 in the UK. The company has also been valued at £616m – numbers that can’t have hurt the ongoing negotiations.