Happy Birthday Spotify

[Bloomberg] [Fully Charged]( From [Bloomberg](   [FOLLOW US [Facebook Share]]( [Twitter Share]( [SUBSCRIBE [Subscribe]](  Hey, it’s Natalia. And Happy Birthday, Spotify. The popular music-streaming app has come a long way from its somewhat messy direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange – a year ago today – to waging a public David vs. Goliath-style battle against one of the titans of tech. Last year there was [no opening bell]( or trading-floor interviews. Instead, the NYSE hung a large red-and-white Swiss flag outside the exchange to celebrate the music-streaming company’s debut. Whoops. Spotify was founded in Sweden. “Our focus isn’t on the initial splash,” Daniel Ek, Spotify's chief executive officer and co-founder, said at the time. “Instead, we will be working on trying to build, plan, and imagine for the long term." When Stockholm-based Spotify chose to list in New York, it was another example of one of the few successful homegrown European tech companies turning to the U.S. in search of scale. But what Europe lacks in scale, it makes up in enthusiasm to regulate, which is playing an important role in Spotify’s ability to plan for the long term. Over the past year, Spotify has been urging European Union legislators to force platforms to stop favoring their own services to those of business rivals. For the music-streaming company, that would have been a clear firing shot at Apple as the iPhone giant expands into new business areas that compete with third-parties on its platform. But after the EU settled on a much milder form of the legislation – one that didn't include the provision – Spotify [turned to]( the bloc’s powerful antitrust agency. The streaming company, which offers both free and paid services, filed a formal complaint in March alleging that Apple’s 30-percent cut of revenue via the App Store was effectively a tax on competitors. Other restrictions also hurt its business, it said. Apple responded [saying it contributed]( to Spotify becoming the business it is today. Spotify isn’t just banking on regulators. Over the past year, it's spent hundreds of millions of dollars to snap up podcast companies Parcast, Gimlet Media and Anchor FM, betting on the low-cost area of podcasting as it renegotiates contracts with major music labels. Looking ahead, Spotify will have to overcome tough competition and the popularity of free music services to maintain its leading market share, Credit Suisse analyst Brian Russo said in a recent note to clients. He started coverage of Spotify with an underperform rating. Some of the toughest competition comes from Apple itself, which is making a big push into subscription services for video, online news and music. The iPhone giant might be late to some of those markets, especially video streaming, but it has a built-in advantage Spotify doesn’t: more than a billion Apple devices in use. Happy Birthday, Spotify, I guess. [– Natalia Drozdiak](mailto:ndrozdiak1@bloomberg.net)   And here’s what you need to know in global technology news YouTube leaders [ignored warnings]( about the rising tide of poisonous, viral conspiracy-theory videos, and instead of addressing the problem, pursued engagement and growth.  Is Andreessen Horowitz turning into a [hedge fund](?  The online drug startups Hims and Kick [are wading into]( a legal gray area.  Intel has [named George Davis](as chief financial officer, filling the post with a man who held the same position at rival Qualcomm for the past six years.  If France [is trying to keep]( Huawei Technologies out of its next-generation telecommunications networks, it’s doing it a lot more subtly than the U.S.    You received this message because you are subscribed to the Bloomberg Technology newsletter Fully Charged. You can tell your friends to [sign up here](.  [Unsubscribe]( | [Bloomberg.com]( | [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022