Expected 12 weeks to US market took 2.5 years

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek answered a question posed during AllThingsD's D10 conference earlier today, claiming that "Apple was threatened by what we were doing" in regards to the streaming service. The 18-million-user-strong service took nearly two and a half years to complete the deals with record companies, leading to speculation that Apple may have slowed the process.

"There was some indication that was happening," said Sean Parker, Spotify director. "It’s a very small industry in a lot of ways, certainly smaller than it was 12 years ago." Parker added, in regards to the timetable for US introduction, "I expected it would take 12 weeks to get Spotify into the U.S."

Ek believes Spotify's advantage over Apple or Amazon is its 700 million recorded playlists from 10 million active users and three million paid users. Spotify has been criticized for failure to fairly compensate independent artists. It is estimated by one of the artists on Spotify that he would need over four million streams per month to receive the equivalent of working full time at a minimum-wage job. The artist suggests the same music would have to be purchased on iTunes or Amazon just 12,000 times for the same compensation.

By Electronista Staff

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industry, Spotify, allthingsD