Now that it’s apparently found its new funding, music service Spotify is ramping up its overseas ambitions, hiring travel booker Kayak.com‘s international managing director Faisal Galaria to build a global business development team (and here’s his playlist). Update: Our story was later confirmed by Spotify.
Galaria says in an email: “My role will be to extend this reach in both existing and new markets through online, mobile and device partnerships.”
Right now, Spotify is available mostly only in western Europe and Scandinavia, but is planning a U.S. roll-out in Q3 or Q4. Galaria’s appointment suggests Spotify could also be aiming for other countries.
U.S. interest is now growing in Spotify – I appeared on the Future Tense public radio show to answer questions about the service last week…
But new UK Music research this week shows 78 percent of people aged 14 to 24 do not want to pay for unlimited music streaming, instead favouring paying for unlimited MP3 downloads.
Between 2004 and 2006, Galaria was Skype’s European director and, through Skype’s investment in wifi phone community Fon, became Fon’s global biz dev VP, striking Fon’s BT (NYSE: BT) and Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) partnerships. In 2007, he became GM and VP for movie site Jaman.com and in 2008 joined the flight booking aggregator Kayak.com, responsible for EMEA and Asia.