Report: Spotify to list on NY Stock Exchange on the week of April 2, could launch today in Vietnam

Sources with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg News that Spotify’s long awaited public listing on the New York Stock Exchange will take place on the week of April 2.

As reported in TMN previously, the Swedish music streaming service has opted for an unconventional debut.

Bloomberg News noted, “Spotify will deviate from decades of practice by not issuing any new shares or raising money in its initial public offering. Instead, existing stakeholders will offer their shares to investors, which is known as a direct listing.

“An active market for private stock sales over the past couple of years has helped the company establish a valuation higher than $20 billion, based on some of the transactions.

“Spotify will spend the next few weeks meeting with investors to manage the uncertainty inherent in this approach, hoping to secure a smooth entry into the world’s largest stock exchange.

“Banks typically help companies establish a price range where a stock will debut to ensure that its value doesn’t plummet on day one.”

The company is hosting an Investors Day on Thursday to spruik its offerings.

On the ledger, Spotify has good prospects in that it is the leader in the phenomenal music streaming field, with 70 million subscribers and 159 active monthly users at the end of 2017, and with revenue climbing to US$5 billion last year.

However its losses are growing (to $1.51 billion last year from $657.8 million in 2016), as it pays out 70% of revenue in royalties to record labels and publishers.

Spotify’s valuation of $20 billion (some estimate $23 billion) is based on stock price from private transactions last year and how many shares it has outstanding.

This would make it one of the biggest public debuts of a tech company since 2012.

But private investors have tended to value firms more highly than public markets in recent years.

Snapchat owner Snap found that out the hard way. Its first day trading last year saw it with a market capitalisation of almost $30 billion but it has struggled to stay in that league.

Meantime, Spotify is expected to go live in Vietnam as early as today.

Last May it announced plans for Vietnam and Thailand which have a combined population of 160 million.

Music editors for each country were advertised to be based in Spotify’s Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore.

It launched in Thailand in August, charging 129 Baht (or just over $5 Australian) per month

Vietnam has 50 million people online, some who are subscribing already to Apple Music and Vietnamese service Zing MP3.

“More than 35 million songs are on their way to you,” said a post published on Spotify Vietnam’s official Facebook page.

India looks like being its next market. In its prospectus which went public this month, Spotify revealed that it has already set up an office in Mumbai.

In India, Spotify will compete against Amazon Prime Music (which launched there this month), Apple Music, Saavn, Gaana and Hungama.

Spotify is in over 60 countries. Its prospectus revealed it has 308 employees in 21 countries that include Australia, Brazil, Belgium, Singapore, Spain and Turkey among others.