More than 100 million users worldwide now pay for Spotify Premium, the company has announced. Spotify reached the milestone by growing paid subscribers by 32-percent year-on-year. Including free subscribers, Spotify now has a total of 217 million monthly active users worldwide. That includes two million Indian users who joined after the company launched its service there in February.
Globally, the numbers put Spotify well ahead of Apple Music, its closest competitor, who reportedly had 50 million paid users worldwide at the beginning of April. However, in the US Apple’s music streaming service in winning, according to the Wall Street Journal, with 28 million subscribers compared to Spotify’s 26 million.
Spotify’s latest earnings also further illuminates the company’s podcasting ambitions. The company says it intends to develop a better advertising model for podcasts, which will include better “targeting, measurement, and reporting capabilities.” This suggests the company plans to develop ways of letting podcast producers place different ads in a podcast depending on the user being targeted, similar to the ads played during ad-supported music listening. Spotify recently acquired the podcasting companies Gimlet Media, Anchor, and Parcast, and currently offers a quarter of a million podcasting titles on the streaming platform.
By the end of this quarter, Spotify says it expects to have 222 to 228 million users, including between 107 and 110 million paid subscribers. The company also says that voice speakers are a critical area for its growth. Last year Spotify ran a promotion where it gave away a free Google Home Mini speaker to every family account subscriber. However, the company’s rumored first-party speaker hardware is yet to materialize.
Spotify is still losing money despite its subscriber growth. The company posted a loss of €142 million ($158.3 million) for the January to March quarter, compared with a loss of €169 million in the same period last year.
Update April 29th, 10:30AM ET: Updated subheadline to add Apple Music comparison.
Comments
I wonder how much of their revenues goes to Apple.
By tooltalk on 04.29.19 7:54am
and how much of that is going to Qualcomm
By kzkr on 04.29.19 8:40am
I mean KFC
By kzkr on 04.29.19 8:40am
QCOM’s royalty comes out to about only 1% of the retail cost of Apple iPhone. Not as nearly outrageous as Apple’s 30%/15% Appstore fee.
By tooltalk on 04.29.19 1:43pm
It can’t be too much considering iPhones are only a fraction of devices that use Spotify. Even less when you consider that not all all iPhone users that use Spotify subscribe through the app. Not to mention Spotify passed the App Store tax on to their customers i.e raising the price to $12.99 a month; even after the 30% tax gets cut down to 15% after a year.
By deept00t on 04.29.19 10:20am
We have to remember, its ONLY if you get it on the App Store, through the app store. If you purchased your membership on the desktop website or mobile website you do not have to pay 30% extra
By king loxx on 04.29.19 10:38am
Also subscriptions drop to 15% after the 1st year through the App Store.
By ddjeff on 04.29.19 10:47am
Yes, correct! Whenever spotify went on their pouting spree they failed to mention that key detail lol.
By king loxx on 04.29.19 11:54am
Perhaps because there’s no logical reason why that should be more than 5%.
By texazzpete on 04.29.19 1:54pm
15% because Spotify is whining that apple takes 30% when they failed to omit in their big spill that Apple lowers the revenue split to 15% after the first year.
By king loxx on 04.29.19 10:39am
That’s still 15% too much when Apple Music is a competitor which stands to gain a substantial advantage from this.
By NukedKaltak on 04.29.19 3:47pm
Do they give any revenue to Apple ? Spotify doesn’t allow subscription purchases through the app store.
By VIIIXXIX on 04.29.19 5:19pm
100m subscribers and still no profit. Seems like music streaming is never going to be profitable and spotify will need to pivot to other services as well?
By theratchetnclank on 04.29.19 9:06am
They were trying to replicate Amazon’s success. Kill competition with free service, start making profit when no one else is left to compete. I think Apple Music has been killing their long term plan. Competition is great.
By I am not Spartacus on 04.29.19 9:58am
The reason it’s not working the way it "should" Is because they aren’t also making original content to make money off of, think about how all these subscription services are moving:
Netflix Originals, Hulu Originals, Prime Originals, and they are using older movies, most songs are day one on these
other things
By king loxx on 04.29.19 11:55am
What kind of original content would you propose Spotify does? Nobody likes or wants special limited editions tied to a specific service.
By KidAKidB on 04.29.19 12:26pm
Who knows, I mean the exclusive content for Netflix is working but i don’t think people would pay money for exclusive songs made by spotify
By king loxx on 04.29.19 12:34pm
Yeah but for movies/TV exclusive content works, but not for music. Most artists don’t want to record an album that will be restricted to only one service either.
By KidAKidB on 04.29.19 12:57pm
I feel like for the music industry it needs to be subsidized because the musicians still need their cut. Apple Music has enough buffer that they can take the hit
By king loxx on 04.29.19 2:35pm
I guess that could work. I still don’t want to see music locked down to a specific corporation though.
By KidAKidB on 04.29.19 3:14pm
I wouldn’t want that either like how movies are gonna be locked on disney basically.
By king loxx on 04.29.19 3:55pm
Netflix and Disney.
By KidAKidB on 04.30.19 8:29am
So what you’re saying is Spotify should become a record label and start signing artists? I’m sure that’ll go over well with the other labels they have agreements with.
By TryBe on 04.29.19 12:46pm
I’m not saying they "should" I’m saying if their current business model is not turning a profit they need to figure out a better way to do it. Sometimes in ways we never expect.
Netflix wouldn’t be able to turn a profit if they had "every" movie on netflix, and for the most part "every" album / track is on spotify.
Note: When I say "every" I mean extremely common, popular tracks besides things that are exclusive to other platforms like tidal.
By king loxx on 04.29.19 12:50pm
They have Spotify exclusive songs already, it’s just that nobody cares.
By Stone Cold Dan Quinn on 04.29.19 2:01pm