Spotify's music service seeks to drum up $1 billion in IPO

Music-streaming pioneer Spotify is hoping to attract a new crowd of fans on Wall Street to help fend off a growing competitive threat posed by Apple.

Spotify will expand its financial arsenal with an initial public offering of stock aiming to raise $1 billion. That figure could change as Spotify's bankers assess investor demand for Spotify shares ahead of the IPO, a process likely to be completed early in the spring.

The company's first steps toward its offering came in a confidential filing a few weeks ago, but the documents weren't released until Wednesday.

The numbers revealed Spotify's music-streaming service boasts 71 million subscribers, nearly twice as many as Apple's rival service.

But Spotify still isn't profitable. The Luxembourg-based company lost 1.2 billion euros ($1.5 billion) last year.

© 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.