Firm's CEO says monetising just one per cent of them would restore music biz to past glories.
Spotify boss Daniel Ek told delegates at Screen Digest's Future of Online Distribution conference that the music industry's future is in 'packaging access rights'.
This is why Spotify is exploring models such as bundling with devices, partnerships with ISPs and working with social media companies, TV makers and more.
He said that this is the key to generating trillions of transactions. "If we can convert just one per cent of them to a paid download or a concert ticket, then we can make the music industry a $40 billion to $50 billion industry again," said Ek.
It's an admirable and lofty aim, although one wonders how much of this bright future Spotify could command. After all, ISPs like Virgin and Sky are moving into music streaming, while Nokia, Sony Ericsson and others are bundling music with handsets.
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Elsewhere Ek reaffirmed that Spotify cannot survive as an ad-funded business alone, and admitted that more work needs to be done to entice users over to a premium service. But he also said the service needs unpaid subscribers.
He said: "Experience tells us that pure paid subscription services don't work. Music is social so you need a large base, and that means having a combination of paid and ad-funded users."
Ek alluded to the alarming cost of running Spotify when he disclosed that opening up the service to everyone (rather than by invitation) raised the level of new subs to 180,000 in a day, instead of the usual 30/50,000. "We can't sustain that," he said.
