Virgin Media to launch Spotify service for subscribers

Virgin Media said on Wednesday it had agreed a deal with Sweden's Spotify to offer music streaming services for the British company's television, mobile phone and Internet subscribers.

"Virgin Media today announced an exclusive agreement with digital music service Spotify that will make Virgin Media the only digital entertainment provider in the UK to offer the music platform across multiple services," it said in a statement.

Under the deal, Virgin Media said that its customers would be able to access Spotify's vast catalogue of more than 13 million music tracks. The service will launch in the coming months, while no price details were given.

Founded in 2006, Spotify is one of the world's biggest streaming websites and is available only in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Britain, France, Spain and the Netherlands because of copyright issues.

Spotify users can stream music free in exchange for listening to advertising, but can also pay five or 10 euros ($6.9 or $13.8 dollars) to gain ad-free access to the service.

The Swedish firm recently announced that it had reached one million paying users in March, and has around seven million users of its free version.