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Digital
Spotify up to four million paying subscribers, adds radio to Android app
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 1 August 2012
Spotify has increased the number of paying subscribers using its service by one million since January, the company announced yesterday.
Speaking on a ‘Future For The Music Industry’ panel at the Global Business Summit On Creative Content in London yesterday, Spotify’s Chief Content Officer and Managing Director of Spotify North America Ken Parks announced that active users now stand at fifteen million, while paying subscribers have reached four million worldwide.
The announcement coincided with the addition of Spotify’s Pandora-style interactive radio service to its Android app, a feature added to the iPhone app back in June.
The update is more significant in the US, because in Europe the mobile interactive radio service, like all mobile services, will only be available to premium subscribers. However, in the US interactive radio is available on mobile to freemium users too.
Those using the ad-funded Spotify package will be able to listen to interactive radio on their mobile, and if they star tracks they like that information will also appear on the starred playlist channel on the platform’s desktop client. In America Spotify is competing head on with Pandora in this space, and is therefore making much of the fact mobile interactive radio is available for free and is integrated with its desktop option.