Spotify, the world's largest music streaming platform, recorded 300 million paid subscribers for the first time in the second quarter this year. Despite raising subscription fees in some regions, the number of paid subscribers increased 9% from a year earlier.
With this, Spotify rose alongside Netflix as a major streaming platform with more than 300 million paid subscribers who pay monthly fees.
Spotify said on the 4th (local time) that monthly active users (MAUs) in the second quarter were 777 million, up 12% from a year earlier. Although it slightly missed the company's earlier guidance, profitability improved as paid users increased.
The company's second-quarter operating profit was 655 million euros (about 1 trillion won), up 61% from a year earlier. Revenue was 4.8 billion euros (about 7.88 trillion won), up 14% in the same period.
Paid subscribers totaled 300 million, excluding free listeners with ads. By region, the share of paid subscribers was Europe (36%), North America (25%), South America (24%), and other regions (15%).
This is seen as the result of Spotify's yearslong diversification efforts to move beyond a music-only streaming platform and reinvent itself as a comprehensive platform offering personalized audio content and a variety of fan experiences.
The company said tiered subscription plans and personalized services led to an increase in paid subscribers.
Early this year, Spotify teamed up with home fitness platform Peloton to introduce fitness content, and in May it launched a service that lets die-hard fans of certain artists among paid subscribers pre-purchase two tickets before general concert ticket sales begin. In the Spotify app, users can listen to a variety of audiobooks and also purchase print books directly.
It is also strengthening AI features. Early this year, it launched "Personal Podcast," a service that uses AI to generate short personalized podcasts. It also rolled out Conversational AI features such as "Talk to Spotify" and "Studio by Spotify Labs." It is developing AI tools that let users create remixes and cover songs directly in the app.