LIVE FROM CTIA WIRELESS 2012: Daniel Ek, co-founder and CEO of music service Spotify, said in his keynote speech that “we don’t think of ourselves as a music service, we see ourselves as a platform,” noting the potential for partnerships in the industry.

The company has already opened its services to third-party developers, to enable them to create apps which build on the core Spotify music experience. At launch late last year, it announced partnerships with companies such as Billboard, The Guardian, Last.fm, Rolling Stone and TuneWiki.

Spotify has also integrated with social networking giant Facebook.

Elk noted the potential for partnerships with operators, but said that this is not simply a case of extending its reach.

“We already have some deals in place with carriers in European countries, and we have seen that can have a really meaningful impact on people’s choice of carrier and their loyalty to them. Here in the US, we are having some great discussions, but we’re really taking our time, because distribution is not the primary reason we want these relationships,” the executive said.

According to Elk, since Spotify launched in the US 9 months ago, “we’ve seen incredible growth.”