Spotify has filed its full report for 2020 with US regulator the SEC, and there are some interesting nuggets on the company’s business in there. For example: “Through December 31, 2020, we have paid more than €21 billion in royalties to certain record labels, music publishers, and other rights holders since our launch,” explains the filing. “In 2020, our expenses for rights holders grew by 17% compared to the prior year.” Which neatly matches Spotify’s 17% year-on-year growth in revenues.
Another stat from the filing: Spotify’s users streamed 92bn hours of content in 2020, up 26% year-on-year. That’s an average of 267 hours per monthly active user – although that calculation is using Spotify’s year-end total of 345 million MAUs – or 22.3 hours a month.
Also: recordings from UMG, Sony Music, WMG and independents licensed through Merlin accounted for over 78% of Spotify streams in 2020. That means the ‘artists direct’ sector, plus indies who do not license through Merlin, accounted for the remaining 22%.
One more figure: Spotify has estimated future minimum guarantee agreements for music and podcasts of €3.6bn.
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