Paying customers are what keeps the service going, so the number is encouraging

Nov 23, 2011 18:21 GMT  ·  By

Spotify has been able to keep itself in the public eye, though not always for the best reasons for quite a while. Now, it's got something else to brag about, the company has just announced that it has over 2.5 million paying subscribers.

That's a huge number for a business that is still largely unproven. While Spotify does have a lot more users than that, most of them don't pay a dime.

And the advertising that's supposed to subsidize the free version doesn't really cover the expenses.

It's a good thing then, for Spotify but for everyone else offering music streaming on a flat rate, subscription basis.

"This week is Thanksgiving in the US. And we’ve got our own reasons to give thanks too," Spotify wrote.

"Fanfare! Drum roll! Yes, we’re excited to announce that we’ve now welcomed 2.5 million paying subscribers to the service," it announced.

"So we’d like to say a big thank you to all our subscribers, new and old. Keep spreading the good news about Spotify!," it said.

"Of course, we’ll continue to focus on providing you with the best music service possible. We’ve got some exciting developments in the works, which we’ll share with you very soon," it added.

Spotify has recently started expanding again in Europe, launching in several countries in just a few weeks. But these are recent developments, there are to other big drivers behind Spotify's increase in paying users.

The service debuted in the US last summer, after almost two years of negotiations. It had a strong launch and aggressive marketing won it a lot of users initially. Of course, few of those started paying right away.

Another big break came early this fall as Facebook launched its new Open Graph with auto-sharing. Everything that users listened to on Spotify would be shared on Facebook, unless they opted out. This also led to an influx of new users, some of which, it seems, have started paying.