New Data Shows Spotify's Mobile Penetration in Europe Still Small But Growing

COLOGNE, Germany - As European online music service Spotify prepares to launch in the U.S., ComScore Data Mine has put up some interesting new info on Spotify's pick up in the old country. According to ComScore's data, which you can look at here, some 4.1 million users in the five largest European countries (Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the U.K.) used a music streaming service on their mobile phones in the three months to May 2011. That's less than 2 percent of mobile phone owners users in the European territories and 4 percent of smartphone owners. But music streaming is increasing, up 5 percent over the three months studied, according to ComScore.

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Spotify was the dominant mobile music streaming operation in just one of the big five - Spain, where nearly half of all mobile music users picked the service. In the U.K., Spotify was a distant second - with 17 percent of users - behind the more than 45 percent that use the BBC's free mobile radio service but ahead of competitor Last.FM, with just over 16 percent of British users. In France, Spotify didn't make the top three, all of which are streaming services of popular commercial radio stations. Spotify is not yet available in Germany or Italy.

Getting users to switch from its free service - which does not include mobile listening - to a monthly paid subscription (which does) - is key to Spotify's business plan. So far, the Swedish-based operation claims to have over a million paid subscribers across seven European countries. Spotify last week announced plans for its U.S. launch.