Group items tagged

Spotify UK drop into the red last year, since subscription revenue fell and the music streaming service invested more in growth here. When compared to 2011's profit of £21 million, accounts reveal Spotify's British arm made a loss of £10.1 million in 2012. Down from £96.5 million a year earlier in 2012 it fell to £92.6 million, the online music streaming platform saw this revenue fall. The decrease in revenue was partially down to its decline in subscription, which fell from £72.4 million to £64.7 million because of the alteration in the way subscriptions were booked. A minimal increase was seen by UK advertising on the platform, rising from £8.1 million to £9.1 million to the year ending December 31. Sources say that subscription numbers have been growing strongly in 2013 thanks in part to partnerships with the likes of Vodafone. Spotify UK declined to comment on its accounts but earlier in the year parent company Spotify Group said: "In 2012 the business focused on driving user growth, international expansion and product development, resulting in soaring user numbers and increased market penetration. "Our key priority throughout 2013 and beyond remains bringing our unrivalled music experience to even more people while continuing to build for long-term growth - both for our company and for the music industry as a whole." With its operations in the thirty two countries around the world, Spotify lets users stream 10 hours of music a month for free with advertising or pay a subscription fee for unlimited, advertising-free listening. Naming Sony, Universal and EMI, and to date has paid out $500 million in royalties to artists, the company has signed deals with major record labels with the said records. With 5 million paying subscribers Globally Spotify saw users leap from 11 million to 20 million in the year. UK numbers were not disclosed. From March this year figures demonstrate this has augmented to 24 million users and 6 million subscribe

October 30, Wednesday, China's money market rates pointed on to a four-month high, a day following the country's central bank instill funds into the market to relieve worries that it was preparing to considerably constrict credit situation. The seven-day report rate, observed as a key measure of confidence to lend in the interbank markets, rose to around 5.59 percent - up about 64 basis points from the prior day. Analysts said that the jump in rates was seasonal in nature and at this stage were not too concerned about a repeat of events in June when a surge in money market rates fueled fears of a credit crunch in the world's number two economy. They further mentioned that liquidity infused into the market this week had not been huge enough to shove overnight lending rates considerably lower. On Tuesday via an open market operation, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) infused 13 billion yuan ($2.13 billion) into money markets. "Liquidity remains tight and the repo operation yesterday was small," said Nizam Idris, managing director, head of strategy, fixed income and currencies atMacquarie Bank. "China is still in the process of fine-tuning rates." Chris Weston, chief market strategist at trading firm IG, added: "Month end is coming up and of course tax implications are being blamed for higher rates." No fear With the benchmark Shanghai Composite stock index up 0.75 percent in afternoon Asia trade, Chinese markets became visible to take the spike in money market rates in stride. Analysts put this down to assumptions that the PBOC would approach into the market with better injections of cash to alleviate any doubts that it was geting ready to constrict monetary conditions in a big way. On Tuesday and Thursday, the PBOC usually carry out reverse-repurchase operations, an opportunity for it to inject liquidity into Chinese money markets. "They [PBOC policymakers] will probably provide liquidity on Thursday - at this point they don't wa