Spotify: The gentle smell of burning cash

The headlines are about the losses at Spotify - an operating loss of £16.4million for 2009 - but nerves will be steadied by the massive growth during the year. Mediaweek reports:

Subscription sales generated £6.8m, up from £380,541 in 2008, which made up the lion's share of £11.3m in total revenue.

Advertising revenue exploded from £2,200 in 2008 to £4.5m last year.

Obviously, it'd be lucky to achieve percentage increases of the same order for 2010, but it feels like a move in the right direction.

This is also interesting: it claims "over" 250,000 subscribers out of a user base of six million, which means 5% of users contribute 60% of the revenue.