http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbe...an-in-music/2/
Spotify's Daniel Ek: The Most Important Man In Music
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Here’s how that social stickiness translates into revenue: You explore your friends’ playlists, discover new music with apps from Rolling Stone, Billboard and Last.fm, and build your own jukebox. Eventually you want to take it everywhere. That’s where Ek has you trapped. With Spotify you pay for portability—$10 a month buys you access to your collection on your mobile device.
This model has proven it can save the music business—in Sweden. One-third of Ek’s home country has signed up, and about one-quarter of those pay for premium access. According to Mark Dennis, who runs Sony Music in Sweden, Spotify single-handedly stemmed a decade of nonstop revenue drop when it launched in 2008; in 2011 Sweden’s music industry will likely see its first growth since the Clinton Administration, with Spotify accounting for 50% of all sales (up from 25% last year). This in a country that has long been a hotbed of piracy.
Extrapolate that on a global scale and the industry will have its magic bullet. With the stakes nothing less than the future of the recording business Ek arrived in the U.S. in July for a three-front battle with Apple, Amazon and Google. Some 400,000 Americans have already subscribed to the premium plan, according to a well-placed music executive, lending credence to Ek’s pitch that he can rescue the record labels by giving their product away for free.
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Recording industry revenue, a healthy $56.7 billion in 1999, according to IbisWorld, clocked in at about $30 billion in 2011.
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With 2.5 million paying customers worldwide (85% pay the $10 a month for portable and the rest pay $5 for ad-free access), plus advertising revenue, Spotify is currently generating a run rate of around $300 million.
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January, 2010:------------ 250,000 paid subscribers
March 17, 2010:----------- 320,000
July 20, 2010: ---------------- 500,000
December 8, 2010: ------ 750,000
March 8, 2011:--------------- 1,000,000
July 14, 2011: -----------------1,600,000
Sept 21, 2011: ---------------- 2,000,000
Nov 23, 2011: ------------------2,500,000 paid subscribers
Spotify is a few weeks away from 3,000,000 paid subscribers.
Since the launch in July, over 400,000 Americans have subscribed to the premium plan. It still has a long long way to go but what happening in Sweden bodes well for Spotify in USA and other Spotify territories.
I still use iTunes and have my albums and playlists on my iPhone, but whenever I just feel like listening to something Spotify is my best friend. I've been a regular user since early 2009. 
