Music streaming service Spotify AB has slashed the price of its family plan to match that offered by Apple Music, as it was revealed that the company lost $173.1 million in 2015.

Spotify’s announcement of the price cut naturally didn’t mention Apple, Inc., but did pitch the new price of $14.99 a month as offering “the same world-class music experience as before,” but now offering more family members access for on the one low price; Spotify previously charged $30 a month for the plan that included only five people, whereas the new plan includes six people.

Under the deal, Spotify users with the family plan will all have their own separate premium accounts and full access to Spotify’s library of songs; current Spotify family plan subscribers will be automatically upgraded to the plan, meaning their next will bill come in at half the price.

At the same time, a financial filing by Spotify in Luxembourg was uncovered by Music Business Worldwide that included details of how much money Spotify made last year, but more importantly how much it lost.

According to the financial report, Spotify brought in $2.18 billion in 2015, up from $1.3 billion in 2014, with the vast majority of funds coming from paid users, who contributed $1.96 billion to the company’s coffers versus only $220 million from advertising played to free Spotify customers.

Spotify’s net loss in 2015 hit $173.1 million, up from $162.3 million in 2014, but a significant slowing compared to the increase from $57.8 million in 2013.

The company’s payouts to the music industry hit $1.83bn in 2015, up 85 percent year-on-year, while Spotify said it had 89 million users at the end of the year, up from 60 million in 2014.

Greedy musicians

While the loss figures are never good for a startup, the size or longevity of Spotify, they do show the company continuing to grow while slowing the growth in losses.

The figures also show that, despite various protests from the music industry allegating Spotify doesn’t pay enough for the music offered, Spotify is literally handing over roughly 84 percent of every penny it makes to artists and music companies, and in doing so continues to make a loss. Do greedy musicians really believe that Spotify should hand over more and never make a profit, particularly given the alternative to services such as Spotify is music piracy, and under that model artists don’t get a cent?

Overall though the figures show Spotify continues to rapidly grow, and if they can get their costs under control, the future is looking bright.

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