Spotify now has 165 million premium subscribers and 365 million monthly active users according to a new revenue report released today. This is a year-over-year increase of 20% and 22% respectively, and up from the 158 million subscribers and 356 million MAU seen last quarter.
Rivals Apple Music and Amazon Music don’t regularly release comparable numbers, but their most recent public numbers compiled by Music Ally put them at 60 million and around 55 million paying subscribers, respectively.
Spotify’s interest in podcasting showed no signs of slowing down this quarter as it continued to make acquisitions and investments in podcasting content and technology. The company recently acquired the exclusive rights to two podcasts, Appelle son papa and Chair Expert from Dax Shepard, as well as the target company Podz whose technology automates the process of creating preview clips that feature key moments from podcasts.
Joe Rogan experience “continues to exceed expectations”
According to Spotify, the percentage of monthly active users engaged with podcast content in the last quarter “improved slightly” from the past two quarters, where about 25% of all MAUs engaged. Listening to podcasts hit a record high in the second quarter in terms of share of hours consumed on the platform. Spotify also says that The Joe Rogan Experience “continues to exceed expectations. There are now 2.9 million podcasts available on Spotify, The Wall Street Journal notes, up from 2.6 million last quarter.
In addition to acquiring the exclusive rights to the podcasts, Spotify also attracts other creators to its platform with paid subscription features. It announced its own podcast subscription feature in April, and said yesterday it will allow paid shows from platforms like Slate and Acast to stream through its service. Such features should make Spotify a more attractive and profitable platform for podcast makers.
Spotify’s average revenue per user increased this quarter, reversing recent trends. The figure now stands at € 4.29 (around $ 5.07) per premium subscriber, up from € 4.12 last quarter. The increase comes after the service increases its subscription prices in the UK and US this quarter. However, the figure is still down 3% year-on-year.
Overall, the company recorded a net loss of 20 million euros, compared to a net loss of 356 euros. million he made in the same quarter of the previous year. Executives said the company was focused on growing rather than generating profit on a quarterly basis, the Wall Street Journal notes, while the previous loss was mainly due to taxes the company had to pay due to its Swedish workforce.
Today’s post has yet to go into more details on Spotify H iFi data, the service’s next level of lossless streaming. Despite announcing the new tier in February with a tentative release date later this year, Spotify has yet to announce an official launch date or pricing. In the months following its announcement, competitor Apple Music announced and then released its own lossless audio streaming feature, which is available at no additional cost. (Amazon also ditched the premium it previously charged for its own lossless streams on the same day.) Whether Spotify likes it or not, the lossless streaming market is now much more competitive than it was in February. .
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