Spotify breaks record with 205 million premium subscribers

The conclusion of the holiday season may have shown a big drop in smartphone sales for all manufacturers, but the same cannot be said for the music streaming industry. In fact, Spotify became the first service of its kind to surpass 200 million paid subscribers (205 million), recording 10 million new subscriptions to its Premium plan in the last quarter!

The truth is that there is no reliable measure of comparison with other music services, as Apple hasn't provided numbers on Apple Music since 2019. Back then it reported around 60 million subscribers and unofficial estimates were for 79 million in 2021 and 88 million in 2022. Either way, it's clear that Apple Music is a far cry from Spotify on a user base, as the latter also lists 295 million active users of the free package!

Spotify's numbers are indeed vertigo inducing, but that doesn't mean the Swedish company is profitable. The last time it closed a quarter with a positive balance was in 2019, and between October and December 2022 it reported a loss of €231 million due to increased labour and marketing costs.