By: Aseem Gaurav on July 6, 2011
Spotify, the award-winning music service that has taken Europe by storm, will soon be landing on the US shores. The company has posted a landing page declaring that, “Spotify is coming to the US. Millions of tracks ready to play instantly, on your computer and your phone.”
US citizens can now sign up on the company’s website to receive an invite when it becomes available in the United States. Spotify’s US launch was imminent given that it recently closed a $100 million round of funding and secured deals with UMG, EMI and Sony.
The Sweden based company, which has over 10 million users around the world (with 1 million paid-subscribers), offers cloud-based streaming music in Europe. Spotify has often promised a US launch but till now no official announcements were made.
Spotify offers free version with ads and unlimited version (which sots $7.22 a month) without ads. Its premium mobile service costs around $14.46 each month. The service, which offers users to listen to music via categories like artists, albums, titles, record labels and genres, is available in Finland, France, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Denmark.
Besides the US launch announcement, Spotify struck a deal with Virgin Media that enables its service to be accessed across multiple platforms. The deal could result in Virgin Media’s 4 million UK customers accessing Spotify’s catalogue of 13 million songs through their TV set-top box, laptop or mobile phone. Spotify can now reach a more mainstream audience through this deal so as to widen its customer base.
