Global audio streaming platform — Spotify has recorded an increase in the number of premium subscribers now at 188 million in its second quarter. The company’s monthly active users (MAU) currently sit at 433 million, as announced in an earnings release today. That’s a year-over-year increase of 14 percent in subscriptions and 19 percent in MAU compared to the 182 million and 422 million figures it announced last quarter. The company says its growth in MAUs was its largest ever in a second quarter, and exceeded its guidance.
The earnings come at the end of a quarter in which Spotify’s big push into podcasts has experienced some challenges. For example, the Obamas, who signed a high-profile podcasting deal with Spotify in 2019 recently decided against extending the deal and will instead work with rival podcasting platform Audible. Spotify sustained a loss of €125 million (around $127 million) this quarter, though it tends to prioritize subscriber growth over quarterly profits. The average revenue per user now sits at €4.54 (around $4.60), up/down from €4.38 (around $4.44) last quarter.
We also still hope that Spotify still has plans to announce a release date or pricing for Spotify HiFi (High Fidelity), a new higher-quality subscription tier it teased over a year ago in February 2021. The tier is intended to offer lossless CD-quality music streams (similar to what’s already offered by competitors Apple Music and Amazon Music) and Spotify originally said it would launch by the end of last year. It’s unclear what’s causing the ongoing delay.
While Spotify is widely considered to be the largest music streaming service globally, many of its biggest rivals in the west don’t release comparable subscriber numbers. The latest figures for Apple and Amazon’s music streaming services compiled by Music Ally are a couple of years old at this point, but in 2019 Apple Music had around 60 million paying subscribers, while in 2020 Amazon Music had 55 million.
