In its Q2 2018 earnings report, Spotify revealed that it has grown to 180 million total monthly active users globally, with 83 million being paid subscribers. This is up from 75 million paid subscribers and 170 million total users in Q1 2018.
The leading music streaming service didn’t specify U.S. paid subscriber numbers. However, 31 percent of its total 180 million active users are within North America.
Spotify says its Family Plan as well as partnerships like Spotify + Hulu bundle have contributed to subscriber growth. Its enhanced free plan has been a catalyst for growth, too.
The company is growing nicely but is under threat by Apple Music, which has been rapidly growing in the last few quarters. While Spotify has more than double Apple Music’s global paid subscribers, reports have suggested Apple may have the upper hand in terms of paid subscribers in the United States.
Spotify expects paid subscribers to rise to 85-88 million and total users to 188-193 million in Q3 2018.
Malaysians love Spotify
Closer to home, Spotify celebrates five years in Malaysia. Malaysians spend on average 148 minutes a day listening to tunes on Spotify – streaming latest hits as well as genres like K-Pop, EDM and Jazz.
K-Pop, unsurprisingly tops the list of most streamed tracks. Malaysians streamed more than 1.4 billion hours of K-Pop track since the launch of Spotify. That’s a LOT of Big Bang, EXO and Hyuna.
Top local female artists include Dato’ Siti Nurhaliza, Yuna and Ziana Zain, while Faizal Tahir, Haqiem Rusli and Malique top the male stakes.
Malaysians also love global artists like Ed Sheeran, The Chainsmokers and Coldplay.
The beauty about Spotify is its intelligent music discovery engine. Discover Weekly, Release Radar and Daily Mix are playlist-driven music discovery features that connect artists to new listeners.
Speaking of discovery, Spotify is a platform that supports artists globally. Visibility and discovery is everything, so Spotify helps artists to maximise their Spotify experience through the use of data analytics and tools. The Spotify for Artists dashboard is designed for artists to do just that.
Spotify prides itself in elevating local genres to the global stage. K-Pop is a fine example of a genre gone sensationally global. Since the launch of Spotify’s K-Pop genre hub two years ago, more than 6.6 billion tracks have been streamed globally on Spotify, with 14.5 billion minutes spent listening to favourite Korean tracks.
In Malaysia, users turn to Korean original soundtracks (OST) as often as they watch Korean dramas!
Get started with Spotify
If you’re not already on Spotify, it’s easy and free to get started. Spotify’s new improved Free on Spotify experience is no longer the crippling, limited free tier of yesteryears. The ad-supported tier is personalised, full-featured experience that’s available for iOS and Android.
Of course, for the full experience with features like listening offline, it makes sense to go Premium.
Over 60 percent of Spotify Premium users get started out on the free tier, so it’s never too late.
For more info, visit Spotify.com.
