Spotify, music and podcast streaming giant, saw substantial growth in subscribers and revenue during the company’s first quarter of 2023.
The audio-streaming giant had 515m monthly active users (MUAs) by April, 2023, a significant increase from the end of December’s figure of 489m.
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Stockholm-based Spotify also reported that 210m its subscriber base is paying for the paid Spotify Premium service.
In the first quarter of 2023, Spotify saw revenue growth of 14% to $3.3bn, although it fell just below its target of $3.4bn – with the company noting the “macro-related variability in our business”.
Daniel Ek, Spotify co-founder and CEO, seemed unphased about the underperforming revenue.
“I really can’t help but feel a tremendous amount of excitement about the progress our team made this quarter,” Ek said in a recent earnings call.
“In fact, this quarter represents our strongest Q1 since we went public. The last two quarters saw the largest MAU growth in our history.”
The first quarter of 2023 saw the company report a loss of $248m, which has almost always been the case for the audio giant.
The news comes after Spotify started the year with a round of mass layoffs.
In January, 2023, the company announced it was cutting 6% of its global workforce as it navigated a tough economic environment.
As advertisers and consumers looked to tighten their purse strings, Spotify laid off around 600 employees.
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