Music streaming service Spotify announced its plans to go public in 2018. The company will trade under the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SPOT, according to the company’s F1 filing.
According to the filing, Spotify shares have traded between $90 and as high as $132.50 on a private market as of February 22. This gives the company a valuation as high as $23 billion, marking it as one of the biggest streaming services.
Spotify’s premium subscription has grown 46 percent year over year as of year end in 2017 to 71 million, while monthly active users have grown 29 percent to 159 million.
Spotify’s ad-supported service saw a 41 percent increase in revenue from 2016 to 2017. The company believes that ad-supported revenue is a strong and viable stand-alone product and considerable for long term revenue.
Spotify says it is a tough environment due to intense competition as it says it trying to keep its users highly engaged, but its closest competitor is Apple Music, which only has 36 million paying users.
Since 2015 to 2017, Spotify has grown as a CAGR of 45 percent, as the company reported revenue of $5 billion in 2017, but reported a net loss of $1.5 billion. The company says $1 billion of the loss was due to non-recurring expenses due to convertible notes from a transaction with Tencent.
The global music industry faced a large decline until its trend reversed in 2015, growing at 3 percent from the year prior then. Growth began to accelerate as revenues reached $15.7 billion, increasing by 6 percent. Streaming services heavily contributed to the return of the music industry, as revenues increased 60 percent in 2016.
“Spotify is more than a music streaming service. We are in the discovery business.” said Spotify in the filing, “If discovery drives delight, and delight drives engagement, and engagement drives discovery, we believe Spotify wins and so do our Users.”
Spotify will not be entering the market through an initial public offering, instead it will go through a process of direct listing. Spotify will list its already existing shares onto the market and let the market determine a price without banks serving as underwriters.
Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Allen & Company are advising Spotify on the offering.
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