Once upon a time, Spotify executives were wary of publicly comparing the streaming service’s prospects to Apple’s iTunes – not least because Apple was a key distribution platform for its mobile app. In recent times, the gloves have come off though. “Some of our partners are saying Spotify is now generating more revenue each month across Continental Europe than iTunes,” the company’s European head of label relations Kevin Brown tells Music Week. “Given that download sales are declining and Spotify is growing rapidly, particularly in the UK, it is only a matter of time before Spotify is bigger than iTunes across Europe as a whole.” Brown adds that Spotify has added 1m active users in the UK alone in the last four months – a statement that will fuel expectations that Spotify will soon finally update its public stats, which have been stuck at 6m subscribers and 24m active users since March 2013. Recent data from Facebook suggested the company is now north of 32m active users (Bulletin, 22-Apr-14).
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In the year or so since its launch, AI startup Kaiber has been making waves,…