KARACHI: The global value of music lovers copyright today sits at $45.5 billion. Spotify are the world’s most popular audio streaming subscription service with a community of more than 640 million users, including 252 million Spotify Premium subscribers, across more than 180 markets.

They are also the largest driver of revenue to the music business today.  Spotify transformed music listening forever when they launched in 2008. Their mission is to unlock the potential of human creativity by giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by these creators. Everything they do is driven by their love for music. A decade ago, there was a widely held view that you couldn’t monetize certain markets.

But the journey of getting the world to pay for music means making long-term investments. Today, Spotify is seeing tremendous growth across markets like India, Brazil, Mexico, and Nigeria. These are places where the platform’s investments are paying off. “In the pre-streaming era, you were either in the club or not. If you didn't have a label deal or the means to distribute your music worldwide, you weren’t one of the few thousand artists on shelves at a record store or one of the 40 in rotation on a radio station. Now, you can record something today and have it on Spotify tomorrow.

Even better, payments to the music industry have shifted from a concentrated few at the top to an increasingly diverse and growing ecosystem of artists finding success”, David Kaefer, VP, Music Business, Spotify said. “Case in point, Spotify estimated that, in 2014, around 10,000 artists generated at least $10,000 per year on Spotify. Today, well over 10,000 artists generate over $100,000 per year from Spotify alone”, he added. Spotify’s goal is to help artists get their work in front of existing and future fans, continue to innovate on their behalf, and deliver it in a way that inspires people to pay for it. In 2014, the music industry reached a low point when global recorded music revenues hit $13 billion. Spotify’s annual contribution at the time was around $1 billion, with around 15 million paying subscribers. In 2024, Spotify alone paid out a record $10 billion to the music industry — totaling nearly $60 billion since their founding. 

Spotify offers an ad-supported free tier. Beyond the ad dollars this generates, more than 60% of Premium subscribers were once free tier users. Bringing in users who don’t expect to pay for music, and deepening their engagement, means they’re more inclined to become subscribers in the future.