Spotify reaches $50 billion market valuation

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Spotify has reached a $50 billion market valuation.

Founded in 2006, Swedish streaming giant Spotify has grown into one of the world’s biggest streaming platforms, and has now touched a $50 billion market valuation after stocks soared last week.

The shares, sold under the name SPOT, were up 10% in value last Friday (25th June), adding around $4 billion in additional market value, as well as an estimated $2.6 billion in public value, giving the streaming service a $50 billion market valuation. The move follows Spotify’s announcement to pilot using video on the platform, after acquiring exclusive rights to Joe Rogan’s video podcast series.

Constantly adding more user tools and no doubt increasing the platform’s value, Spotify also recently debuted group listening, Group Sessions, that allows premium users to listen to a shared queue of music at the same time.

Spotify recently revealed its Music Relief initiative for artists affected by the coronavirus pandemic, which “recommends verified organisations that offer financial relief to those in the music community most in need around the world”. The streaming giant also introduced a “tipping” system, which lets fans donate either to worthy causes selected by the artist or to the artist themselves via PayPal.me and Cash App.

Despite this, Spotify and other streaming platforms have been under considerable scrutiny in recent months. In April, PRS For Music’s Tom Gray shared recently released figures acquired by The Trichordist which revealed just how many plays your tracks would need to have on streaming platforms in order to make the equivalent of the UK minimum wage. As Gray put it, the figures are “terrifying”,  showing that it would take 357 streams on Spotify for an artist to earn £1, while it would take 3,114 streams to earn an hour’s minimum wage pay, and that’s only going off the rare chance the artist owns 100% of the rights to their music. This week, a campaign has been launched by two leading UK music associations calling for an increase in streaming royalties for artists in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.