Spotify Is Closing In On A Huge Milestone

It's no secret that Spotify is the music streaming service to beat, but just how popular is it? In its latest round of financials, Spotify gives us an idea, revealing just how many monthly active users and how many Premium subscribers it has. With those numbers out in the open, it seems that Spotify is closing in on a major milestone.

As revealed in its financial report, Spotify now has 299 million monthly active users, though keep in mind that this counts everyone who uses the service, not just Premium subscribers. That figure represents a 29% year-over-year increase, which is pretty impressive growth.

As far as Premium subscribers are concerned, Spotify say it has 138 million around the world, which is an increase of 27% year-over-year. Multi-user subscriptions like the Family Plan and the recently-introduced Duo plan have been significant drivers of Premium's growth according to Spotify. Podcasts seem to be panning out for Spotify too, as 21% of its monthly active users engaged with podcast content in Q2.

In terms of the hit Spotify took because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems things are on the upswing once more. The company says that as of June 30th, "global consumption hours have recovered to pre-COVID levels," while in-car listening has bounced back to less than 10% below where it was at before the pandemic. That's a pretty big deal, because Spotify says that in-car listening saw a whopping 50% decline at one point in April.

It wasn't all wins for Spotify in this latest round of earnings though, as it reported an operating loss of €167 million and a decrease of 21% in ad revenue from free users. So, it seems that Spotify still has some work ahead of it, despite the encouraging growth we're seeing from both monthly active users as a whole and Premium subscribers. We'll see what happens from here, but it won't be long before Spotify hits that 300 million monthly active user mark.