The interesting part is that the ad-supported side of the platform is self-sustaining, and it works as an excellent funnel for Spotify to attract as many premium members as possible. Of these, 295 million premium members and 205 million ad-supported members. Indeed, by 2022 Spotify had a total of 489 million users.

Spotify follows a freemium business model, where it leverages a powerful free app with hundreds of millions of users. By 2022, Spotify had 489 million users, of which 205 million premium members and 295 million ad-supported users. Of these revenues, 87.4% or €10.25 billion came from premium memberships, while over 12.6% or €1.47 billion came from ad-supported members.

Founded in 2008 with the belief that music should be universally accessible, it generated €11.7 billion in 2022. Spotify has a free ad-supported service and a paid membership. Spotify is a two-sided marketplace where artists and music fans engage. Indeed, in 2023 with 16.5% of Spotify’s shares, he’s worth around $3.7 billion.ĭaniel Ek’s net worth is highly tied to the market valuation of Spotify.

Home Pageĭaniel Ek is one of the founders and one of the principal shareholders of Spotify.

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“I hope we can take this technological shift and move it to not just being about listening to music but even about how we create music.”īelow are Daniel Ek’s favorite books, available to purchase individually or as a set. “Search is now becoming more of a personal assistant, suggesting things to you before you’ve even thought about them,” he told Charlie Rose in 2014. Today Spotify represents 43 percent of music subscriptions (versus 20 percent for Apple) and is toying with going public. Since launching Spotify in 2008, Ek has joined a vaunted club of tech pioneers-Apple, Amazon, Netflix-in disrupting a once-solid business model. He had a 1957 Fender Stratocaster by the time he was 13, and was a millionaire by 22. Described as Europe’s “greatest digital influencer” by Wired, Spotify founder Daneil Ek had barely started high school in his native Sweden before he was offering to create home pages for clients at vastly reduced rates, using a secret cellphone to manage his burgeoning business.

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