Spotify is the world’s most popular music streaming service, outperforming competitors like Apple Music and YouTube Music, with its 220 million premium subscribers and over 400 million monthly active users.
It offers access to over 70 million songs, podcasts, and other audio content from various genres and artists.
While operating on a freemium model, Spotify allows users to listen for free with ads and limited features or without ads by paying a monthly fee.
Spotify was founded in 2006 in Sweden by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon, who wanted to create a legal alternative to online music piracy that was rampant at the time.
They managed to convince the major record labels to license their music catalogs to Spotify in exchange for a share of their revenues and company equity.
Spotify launched in 2008 and quickly gained popularity, especially after partnering with Facebook in 2011. It expanded to many countries and had its IPO in 2018 with a valuation of $26.5 billion.
However, despite being the king of music streaming and having a loyal fan base, Spotify has never been profitable.