One of the world"s biggest music streaming services Spotify has now reached 515 million monthly active users witnessing a 22% year-over-year growth. The company said in its Q1 2023 earnings report that it was the strongest first quarter it has seen since going public back in 2018. It notes that the increase in the numbers exceeded its guidance by 15 million.
Speaking of premium users, Spotify now has 210 million paying subscribers which has grown by 15% year-over-year. The subscriber gain has boosted the company"s total revenue by 14% to €3 billion, it said. However, the increased numbers share the stage with the cost-cutting done by the company, which includes lowering marketing spending. Spotify also confirmed earlier this year that it would be laying off 6% of its workforce.
The Stockholm-based streaming service introduced a number of features during the quarter such as AI DJ to create personalized playlists, a new mobile UI, NFT-enabled playlists, discovery mode, and more. More recently, the company also rolled out a new iPhone lock screen widget and added Strava integration. However, there is no word about when its HiFi lossless audio tier will arrive on the market.
At the time of writing, Spotify stock was trading at $138 per share, up 5.19% since the open. This suggests investors are reacting favorably to the growth in users that it reported.