Spotify now has 220 mn paid subscribers

SAN FRANCISCO: Music streaming giant Spotify on Tuesday announced that the platform now has 220 million Premium subscribers and 551 million monthly active users, as of June 30.

The company, in its Q2 earnings report ,said that the monthly active users surged 27 per cent to 551 million, and Premium subscribers grew 17 per cent (year-on-year) to 220 million.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek also shared the figures on Twitter, thanking the team for their efforts.

"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," he said.

The second quarter earnings report comes less than 24 hours after Spotify announced to increase its prices in the US and several other markets worldwide, similar to price increases seen by other music streaming services, including Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music Premium.

Meanwhile, the company has made several cuts in 2023 after Ek stated that the company's priorities for the year were "speed and efficiency".

It announced in January that it would lay off 6 per cent of its global workforce, or about 600 employees; shut down Clubhouse competitor Spotify Live and Worldle competitor Heardle in April; and then cut another 200 jobs from its podcasting division in June.

Earlier this month, Spotify started informing its users who have subscribed to its Premium service through Apple's in-app purchase system that it will no longer support it as a payment method.

Since May 2016, the company has not allowed new Premium subscribers to pay for service through Apple’s in-app purchase, citing the tech giant's "tax" on App Store purchases, reports Variety.