Despite pressure from a ton of other music streaming services, Spotify keeps adding users like hotcakes.
The company held its Q1 2022 earnings call today. In a blog post, Spotify announced that it achieved its “strongest” first quarter since taking the company public back in 2018. That’s quite the feat considering competition in the music streaming industry has only increased since that time.
Spotify also revealed that it now has over 500 million monthly active users — 515 million to be exact. The company says that monthly active users have grown 22% since the same period last year. In addition, premium subscribers grew 15% year-over-year. You can check out the full high-level breakdown provided by the company below:
- Monthly Active Users grew by 22% year-over-year to 515 million driven by strength in both developed and developing markets, and nearly all age groups.
- Premium Subscribers grew 15% year-over-year to 210 million with outperformance across all regions, led by Europe and Latin America.
- Total Revenue grew 14% year-over-year to €3.0 billion, led by Subscriber gains.
- Gross Margin finished at 25.2%, reflecting improved music and podcast profitability.
- Operating (Loss)/Income finished at €(156) million, aided by lower marketing spend.
Spotify’s Q1 earnings come more than a month after the company announced a major redesign to its smartphone app. The update to the app introduces a new home screen where users can experience quick previews of music, podcasts, and audiobooks. It also introduced a new “Smart Shuffle” button, new discovery features in search, and an autoplay feature for podcasts.
The redesign is already rolling out to parts of the Spotify app. For example, while many users haven’t had their home screen updated just yet, choosing to filter the home screen by music, podcasts, or audiobooks enables the new, TikTok-like experience for a lot of people.
The company also announced it was killing off Anchor and rolling it into Spotify for Podcasters.
