Spotify’s 2009 UK accounts appeared at Companies House on Friday. They’re largely irrelevant now – not just because they’re nearly 12 months old, but also because Spotify, as we wrote when we covered its 2007/08 accounts, they’re not the whole picture: Spotify also operates from Sweden and other countries.
Regardless, the figures are an interesting snapshot in to the startup’s finances during its first full year of customer operation after initial R&D, the most interesting of which being the split between advertising and subscription income…
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
|
Ad sales |
£4.51m |
|
Subscriptions |
£6.8m |
|
Revenue |
£11.32m |
|
Cost of sales |
-£18.82m |
|
Gross loss |
-£7.5m |
|
Distribution costs |
-£608,711 |
|
Administrative expenses |
-£8.29m |
|
Operating loss |
-£16.4m |
|
Finance costs |
-£259,292 |
|
Loss for the year |
-£16.66m |
The company has since started limiting free, ad-supported playback and pushing its subscription service harder. 2009 was still a building and investing year for Spotify.
At last disclosed counts, Spotify had 10 million users and about 500,000 paying subscribers, though this is now likely to be higher.
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