Spotify now has 220 million paying subscribers

Spotify now has 220 million paying subscribers

Nick Barclay / The Verge

Spotify had 220 million Premium subscribers and 551 million monthly active users as of June 30th, the company announced today in its latest earnings report. That represents a 27 and 17 percent increase, respectively, compared to the same period last year and is above its outlook released last quarter.

But while listener numbers were up, Spotify reports that it’s making less revenue on average from each of them. In today’s release, Spotify says its average revenue per user currently sits at €4.27 (around $4.72), a 6 percent decline year-on-year and a slight fall compared to €4.32 (around $4.79) last quarter.

Today’s second quarter earnings report comes less than 24 hours after Spotify announced it would be raising its prices in the US and several other markets worldwide, mirroring similar price increases seen with other music streaming apps like Apple Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, and YouTube Music Premium. Spotify’s price increases are clearly designed to reverse its falling revenues per user, although its impact won’t be visible until next quarter.

Thanks to the Spotify team for another strong quarter and for powering our remarkable growth: 118M MAU and 32M subs over the last twelve months. Encouraging to see this progress against what we laid out in June 2022 at Investor Day. pic.twitter.com/4XS2BKbZle

— Daniel Ek (@eldsjal) July 25, 2023

Meanwhile, 2023 has seen the company make several cuts after CEO Daniel Ek said the company’s priorities for the year were “speed and efficiency.” It said it would be laying off 6 percent of its global workforce, or an estimated 600 employees, in January; shut down its Clubhouse competitor Spotify Live and Worldle competitor Heardle in April; and then went on to ax a further 200 roles from its podcasting division in June.

The company made a net loss of €302 million (around $333 million) this quarter, versus a loss of €125 million (around $138.5 million) in the same quarter last year. That’s not particularly surprising from a company that’s generally prioritized growth over quarterly profits, but clearly the company is working to reduce these losses going forward.

Image: Spotify

A chart showing the year-on-year growth in Spotify’s monthly active users.

Spotify’s initial earnings release contains no mention of its long-delayed HiFi streaming option. The company announced the product over two years ago, and said it would bring CD-quality lossless streams to the service. Recently, Bloomberg reported that lossless streaming might be included as part of a more expensive subscription tier codenamed “Supremium,” which could initially release in non-US markets later this year. A survey sent to at least one user last year suggested the company was considering charging $19.99 a month for a new streaming tier dubbed “Platinum” which would include HiFi along with other features.

Although many of its closest competitors don’t regularly release comparable user numbers, Spotify describes itself as the world’s most popular audio streaming service.