• Spotify has amassed 551 million monthly active listeners, beating its own expectations for Q2 2023.
• It has 220 million Premium subscribers around the world, with new growth seen in Europe, Asia and Latin America.
• Spotify recently increased its prices for subscriptions in order to continue dealing with harsh market conditions worldwide.

The latest quarterly results for audio streaming platform Spotify have beaten expectations for both subscribers and monthly active listeners. The Swedish app set a goal to hit 1 billion users by 2030, and it seems well on the way to that lofty target, with 551 million monthly listeners in the second quarter.

Estimates from its forecast placed monthly users at around 527 million, which it handily beat, according to a breakdown from Reuters.

Spotify officially launched in 2014, and it has already amassed a larger monthly following than contemporaries like Twitter, which has around 450 million monthly users. However, it is still to see Facebook and YouTube numbers.

It is said in particular that over 40 percent of everyone who has an internet connection uses YouTube at least once a month.

So Spotify still has room to grow, but the platform has no doubt solidified itself as successful as it works towards its goals. A rise in Premium subscribers, Spotify’s bread and butter, saw revenues of $3.51 billion. Subscribers grew 17 percent in the quarter to 220 million.

Markets that saw the most growth of subs include countries in Europe, Latin America and Asia. This is despite a rise in Premium prices in 53 countries across these regions with a single subscription now costing $10.99 from $9.99.

“The market landscape has continued to evolve since we launched. So that we can keep innovating, we are changing our Premium prices across a number of markets around the world. These updates will help us continue to deliver value to fans and artists on our platform,” said Spotify about the new prices.

Spotify’s results are a rare turn of good favour for the tech industry. Some of the largest tech firms in the world, from Samsung to Intel, have reported reduced performance for the last few quarters. Spotify’s focus on services rather than products seems to have been to play, as customers affected by the global economic downturn seem happy to continue paying for subscriptions to services rather than forking out for new devices.

That is not to say that the platform has not been affected. In January Spotify announced that it would begin cutting some of its 10 000-strong worldwide staff in order to reduce expenses.

[Image – Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash]