Spotify has 130 million paid subscribers and sees changed listening routines

Spotify now has 130 million paying users out of a total of 286 million monthly active users. Due to the corona crisis, according to the streaming service, a clear change is visible in users’ listening routines.

Spotify reports in the presentation of the quarterly figures that it has had a good first quarter of 2020, in which the company points to the 286 million monthly active users. That is an increase of 31 percent compared to the first quarter of 2019. The company already had this growth percentage during the last quarter of last year.

The number of paying users with a subscription increased by 31 percent to 130 million; compared to the last quarter of last year, this is an increase of 5 percent. There is also still a significant group of users without a subscription, where advertisements form the revenue model. Compared to the first quarter of 2019, that group grew by 32 percent to 163 million.

The Swedish music streaming service reports in an explanation of the quarterly figures that there is clearly a covid-19 effect. For example, from the end of February there was a clear decrease in the number of daily active users in Italy and Spain; these are two countries that have been hit relatively hard by the coronavirus. The company says it saw a decline in consumption and therefore expected the numbers of monthly active and paying users to decline, but that turned out not to be the case. According to Spotify, all major regions saw significant growth in users returning to monthly activity.

In terms of listening habits, Spotify reports that the service is being used less in cars, via wearables and on web platforms. In some cases, there are significant decreases, but on the other hand, the use of Spotify via TVs and game consoles has increased by more than fifty percent. There are also clear changes in the morning routines. “Every day is like the weekend now,” the company reports, a trend that’s more apparent with podcasts than listening to music. Spotify explains that by pointing out that there is much less travel.

Spotify’s total revenue in the past three months amounted to 1.85 billion euros, a growth of 22 percent compared to the first quarter of last year. As in the first three months of 2019, there was also a loss; a year ago this was still at 47 million euros and in the past three months it has fallen to 17 million euros.