Spotify Loses $194M During 2015

Spotify brought in a whopping $2.18bn in revenues in 2015, growing its income by 80% in the year.

However, Net losses stood at a painful $194m, but these grew much slower - widening by just 6.7% compared to 2014 according to Music Business Worldwide.

In a financial filing in Luxembourg uncovered by MBW, Spotify told its investors that "in many ways, [2015] was our best year ever".

Advertising revenues nearly doubled in the 12 months, up 98% to $219m.

Meanwhile, subscription revenues grew by a slightly slower pace, up 78% to $1.95bn.

In terms of Spotify's total $2bn+ income, ads therefore claimed 10.1% - an improvement on the 9.2% share seen in 2014, but another reminder of how heavily the company relies on people paying for premium accounts.

Spotify's payouts to the music industry (categorized as 'royalty, distribution and other costs') hit $1.83bn up 85% year-on-year, no doubt due to some hefty advances.

That means 84% of Spotify's total income went back out the door either to the music rights-holders, or to facilitate payment to music rights-holders.

Spotify's total active user base increased from 60m at the end of 2014 to 89m at the end of 2015, according to the filing.

Of these active users, over 28m were paid subscribers.