At the MIDEM conference in Cannes, Spotify has revealed that it's managed to convert more than 250,000 of its total 7 million users to its paid service, which costs £10 per month. If our sums are right, that means revenues of about £2.5 million, before advertising is taken into account.

That means that about 95% of Spotify's userbase are still using the free version, which is funded by advertising playing between songs. Previously, Spotify had refused to disclose what the proportion was, despite frenzied speculation in the press. CEO Daniel Ek claims that this is the first time in the industry that the number of subscribers has grown so quickly.

The premium version of Spotify adds a number of benefits - ad-free listening, mobile phone streaming, increased audio quality and exclusive content that's not available to users of the free service. The streaming music provider has proved a smash hit in Europe but is still unavailable in the USA.

The BBC has an in depth interview with Ek that covers plenty of ground, including how much artists are paid in royalties - a topic that's been a bone of contention with the music community in the past. He also disclosed that Facebook and Twitter send the most traffic to the service, with people sharing playlists and linking directly to songs.

Via: news.bbc.co.uk

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