Music streaming service Spotify to list on NY Stock Exchange

Music streaming service Spotify filed for a direct listing of its shares on Wednesday. CEO and co-founder Daniel Ek acknowledged the move on his Twitter account. 

Spotify did not mention a listing price for its shares in the filing or say how much it would list. The company is valued at roughly $19 billion (€15.6 billion) according to Reuters calculations based on the filing.

Launched in 2008 and available in more than 60 countries around the world, Spotify is the biggest music streaming company in the world. 

The papers that were filed with the US Securities Exchange Commission offered the most detailed look yet at the finances of the ten-year-old company. It said it had 159 million monthly users including 71 million paying subscribers — twice that of closest rival Apple Music.

"While streaming has changed the way many people access music, we believe there is an untapped global audience with significant growth potential," said Ek.

Music streaming is big business

Apple Music which launched in 2015 has 36 million paying subscribers. Amazon's music streaming service has 16 million paying subscribers. 

According to the papers, revenue for Spotify jumped 17 percent in 2017 to €4.09 billion up from €2.95 billion a year earlier. Its operating loss widened to €378 million in 2017 from €349 million a year earlier.

Its net loss, however, increased 129 percent in 2017, driven mostly by on-paper financing costs related to a 2016 deal in which Sweden-based Spotify raised $1 billion in debt that would convert to shares upon an initial public offering.

The company is seeking to list its ordinary shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "SPOT."

Spotify is based in Luxembourg.

av/rc (Reuters, AFP, AP)