There are a number of popular mobile entertainment options targeting music fans, but one brand beats the rest by a long shot — Spotify. With its 15-year-long track record and over 551 million active users, this online service is the industry leader in most countries, including the US.
Figures like these aren’t the only impressive data about this popular online platform; in fact, there are plenty of other Spotify stats that you’ll find fascinating.
Keep reading to discover more Spotify statistics on how many users are there, artists, revenue, investments, genres, competitors, and other intriguing facts.
Let’s get started!
Right off the bat, we will look at some of the most important Spotify statistics. Here are the figures you don’t want to miss. In 2024, Spotify introduced a new product that is reminiscent of Last.fm, blending music streaming with personalized music recommendations and social features. This new platform aims to provide users with curated playlists based on their listening habits and musical preferences while also encouraging music discovery through community-driven recommendations. According to Spotify’s Quarterly reports, there were 551 million active Spotify users worldwide per month in Q2 2023. These figures show a monthly increase of approximately 118 million from Q2 2022. When compared with previous years, the surge in demand is even more impressive. A table-based user overview of Spotify usage statistics in the last 5 years should help you visualize it. Spotify boasted over 220 million paying users in Q2 2023, twice as many as some of its competitors. Spotify works based on the freemium model, which means that not all of its users are paying for the service. The platform’s 2022 annual reports show that it had 205 million Premium users and 295 million ad-supported users at the end of the year. Let’s compare the numbers over the years: Spotify is available in 184 out of 195 countries and territories worldwide. From a geographical perspective, the company’s target audiences predominantly come from Europe, North America, and Latin America. However, the rest of the world proved to be the biggest overall market in Q2 2023, with dropping shares for Europe and North America (previously leaders in Q2 2019). Spotify lost 5 million users in Russia in 2022. Spotify was one of the companies that suspended their operations in Russia in March last year. This action resulted in significant listener loss in each of the 2022 quarters. According to the Spotify stats, over 2 million of these subscribers were paying users. The following Spotify stats show how pulling off the market affected the platform: Gen Z made up the majority of Spotify listeners in 2022. Past Spotify reports reveal similar results, as does the report from Q2 2023 (which indicates a “strong growth among Gen Z listeners”). Younger generations have dominated the user base on this music streaming platform for several years, though millennials have held the lead most of the time. A 2018 USA Statista survey supports these findings, providing more information about the rest of the users. Here’s what the data indicates: Spotify currently has more female than male users. The 2018 Statista Spotify user demographics survey mentioned above analyzed more than age metrics. It also collected interesting data that defined the platform’s audience on a gender basis. The 2018 figures indicated the platform has more male users. However, this trend appears to have reversed over the past five years. You can compare the differences in the table below. Spotify has raised more than $2.1 billion over 20 rounds of funding. Spotify has been in the spotlight since it was founded in 2006. Its owners, Martin Lorentzon and Daniel Ek, raised $21.6 million to launch the firm in 2008. Several investors, including Horizons Ventures and Goldman Sachs, contributed an additional $50 million and €11.6 million in 2009 and 2010, respectively. Over the years, the company attracted 56 investors, reaching over $2 billion in funding. The table below comprises the most relevant data regarding Spotify investors as of today. By 2023, Spotify acquired 27 smaller organizations and businesses. Spotify joined forces with numerous famous brands, including giants like Uber and Tinder. However, its acquisitions drew more attention from the public. As the company’s market capitalization increased, Spotify acquired close to 30 organizations, expanding to other increasingly popular fields like podcasting. Quite a few of these took place during 2022, as you can see in the table below. Spotify has made five significant investments since its launch. The company’s first investment was Soundtrack Your Brand in 2015, which was worth $10.9 million. This venture proved a huge success. According to Reuters, the company’s sales grew by 300% and 400% a year until 2017. As a result, Spotify carried on with its investing journey, putting money in DistroKid, Artory, and Sounder.fm. Its biggest expenditure was Tencent Music Entertainment, which reportedly totaled $910 million. Last year, the platform also made headlines after securing exclusive rights to two of the most-listened-to podcasts — the Joe Rogan Experience and Call Her Daddy. The former sold for $200 million and the latter for $60 million. While successful in terms of audience engagement, these investments and previously-listed acquisitions largely contributed to the company’s operating expenses growth of 13% year-over-year in Q2 2023. While speaking to shareholders in Q2 2023, Ek, Spotify’s CEO, noted that “that our investments in adding podcasts and improving our platform and user experience are paying off nicely.” This is because “this quarter netted the highest monthly active user growth in Spotify’s history”. Spotify earned approximately $6.2 billion in revenue in the first half of 2023 (Q1 and Q2). Spotify’s quarterly statistics show the company is steadily increasing its revenue. The table below illustrates the steady growth. Spotify owes most of its Q2 2023 revenue increase to its paying users. Premium Spotify users accounted for as much as 87% of the firm’s operating earnings, whereas ad-supported ones contributed 13%. These numbers increased by around 11% and 12% respectively, compared to Q2 2022. You can see the changes over the last couple of quarters in the table below. Spotify reports show its Premium user ARPU declined by 6% in Q2 2023 compared to Q2 2022. The average revenue per Premium user (ARPU) declined to EUR 4.27 by June 2023. This is largely due to changes in the product and marketing mix, and unfavorable foreign exchange rates. Spotify recorded €766 million in gross profit in Q2 2023. Spotify’s Q2 2023 performance led to a slight decline in the gross margin. Although Q2 2023 saw an all-time high in MAU growth and the strongest Q2 to date for subscribers net additions, the company saw an decrease in gross margin. Namely, Spotify statistics indicate a 24.1% gross margin, down 47 bps. This is due to net charges related to the shutdown of various podcast shows, and the impairment of excess real estate. Spotify’s forward-looking statements predict a profitable Q3 2023. Its analytics predict a fruitful Q3 2023. The following table comprises the company’s expectations for 2023 Q3. Experts predict Spotify’s stock will be valued at around $168 per share in Q2 2024. Spotify has never been investors’ favorite because of its notorious low gross profit margins. Nevertheless, the company has already made structural changes that could impact its valuation in the long run. It slashed its workforce, reduced its real estate, and shifted its focus to cost control and efficiency in hopes of reducing operating expenses. With limited competition and high-quality service and product, these changes could lead to serious margin improvements in 2024. If you’re interested in buying Spotify stocks, now might be a good time. Hip hop is one of the most-listened-to genres on Spotify in 2023. Hip hop alone accounts for close to 25% of all of Spotify’s regularly streamed music, according to Spotify itself. Nevertheless, we can’t forget the fact that the platform is home to numerous other genres, from classics to trendy and alternative varieties. Here’s how their popularity compares to USA’s top genres, as according to Medium as of July 2023: Today’s Top Hits was Spotify’s most popular playlist in 2022. Spotify offers hundreds of regularly updated playlists to its users worldwide. While most draw millions of followers, Today’s Top Hits consistently has the largest reach. It’s similar to Billboard Hot 100 in the sense that it covers the industry’s most popular tracks at any given moment. Here’s how it fared against other playlists that ranked high in popularity last year: The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights is currently the most-streamed song on Spotify. Spotify’s top-streamed genres, playlists, and artists change frequently. However, the top-streamed song tends to be more stagnant. Ed Sheeran’s hit, Shape of You, has reigned supreme for several years. However, the Weeknd’s Blinding Lights took its throne in January 2023, more than three years after its release in 2019. This bop stands at over 3 billion streams. Give the table below a glance to discover other popular tracks on Spotify as of October 2023. Spotify boasts over 100 million regular podcast listeners. Although primarily a music streaming service, Spotify has recently entered the podcasting arena as well. The venture was such a hit that the company made multi-million dollar investments in the category in five years, significantly expanding its offering. In return, podcast listenership continued to rise, helping uphold Spotify’s status as the best audio platform in the world. Based on data from Edison Research, Spotify is currently the no. 1 podcast streaming platform in the US as of Q2 2023. The top podcast category of 2023 was Comedy. Spotify is among the richest podcast streaming platforms genre-wise. Its apps host around 60 podcast categories, including art, entertainment, crime, business, education, and more. Their popularity levels are pretty consistent. Spotify stats show that listeners’ preferred genre is comedy, followed by health & fitness, and true crime. Other popular genres include society & culture, and news. The Joe Rogan Experience was Spotify’s most popular podcast in the US as of October 2023. Rogan, The Joe Rogan Experience host and founder, has been involved in a number of controversies, some of which forced Spotify to take down several episodes. However, the podcast doesn’t appear tohave suffered at all. This comedy/society-centered podcast has remained Spotify’s no. 1 podcast in the US in stream count since 2020. Here’s a list featuring other October 2023 most-streamed contenders on Spotify. Spotify currently hosts over 100 million music tracks. Spotify has always been home to the newest and most exciting music. In 2021, the company’s CEO, Ek, confirmed that around 60,000 new songs are added to the platform every day. To put it into perspective, these figures suggest Spotify adds a new song to its database every 1.4 seconds and releases 21 million songs annually. Statistics like this may be beyond impressive, but it wasn’t always like that. The company has had to come a long way to attain the numbers it enjoys today. The table below shows how its song database has grown over time. Spotify hosted 5 million podcasts by the end of 2022. This music-streaming platform entered the podcast scene in 2018. The category immediately became a hit with the listeners. The number of podcast followers grew by 175% by the end of the year. Realizing podcasts are the next big thing, the company decided to take advantage of the market gap. It started by acquiring two of the leading players in the podcasting industry — Gimlet Media and Anchor. Since then, Spotify has invested more than $500 million into this sector. Spotify currently offers over 350,000 audiobooks. Audiobooks are Spotify’s latest business endeavor. Nir Zicherman, Spotify’s vice president, explained the company considers the sector a “substantial untapped market.” Spotify acquired Findaway, a popular audiobook platform, in June last year to support its new service. The program officially launched in September 2022, providing listeners with over 350,000 ready-to-listen titles in various genres. Spotify’s shelves include non-fiction, novels, business literature, historical fiction, and more. The platform’s current audiobook pricing model is based on one-time purchases. It doesn’t require listeners to be Premium users or pay for a subscription. The entire audiobook library is available to everyone interested. Drake is Spotify’s most-streamed artist as of October 2023. Like the most-streamed song, the top-streamed artists do not change often on Spotify. Bad Bunny, a Latin American singer/rapper, successfully held the title for three consecutive years. However, in a surprising turn of events, Drake surpassed him this April 2023, reaching a whopping 66 billion streams. According to ChartMaster, here’s other popular musical artists and the number of their streams on Spotify below as of October 2023. Bad Bunny was Spotify’s top-streamed artist in 2022. Drake may have overthrown Bad Bunny as the most-streamed artist, but the Puerto Rican singer/rapper remains atop the charts. Spotify named him its top artist after he reached 18.5 billion streams on this platform in 2022. He also clinched the 2022 most-streamed album honors with his fourth solo album, Un Verano Sin Ti. According to Billboard, the album made a streaming record on the day it was released — Spotify listeners streamed it as many as 183 million times within 24 hours. The lists below show Bad Bunny’s competitors for the top artist and album based on Spotify statistics. 2022 Most Streamed Artist 2022 Most-Streamed Album Spotify might be the world’s best-known music streaming platform, but it’s not without competition. This company’s biggest rival, especially in the US market, is Apple Music, a service launched in 2015. This platform holds the biggest global market share after Spotify. Its strength lies in its comprehensive portfolio. Plus, the company’s focus isn’t as narrow as Spotify’s, which gives it a wider audience reach. A close second to Apple Music is Amazon, another globally renowned company. Launched in 2007, it’s older than both competitors mentioned so far. However, it features a somewhat smaller user base and music library. Still, the platform works similarly to the other two — it’s available on desktop and as an app for Android and iOS users. Plus, it also lets you stream music on demand for a monthly fee. YouTube Music is the third and final music-streaming company worth mentioning in this section. The service launched around the same time as Apple Music in 2015. Users can access songs, albums, and playlists with and without video through paid and free plans. YouTube Music used to trail behind its competitors but has gained more traction recently. A likely contributor to this success is its human-curated content, which sets it apart from the AI-generated material its competitors offer. Now that we’ve gone through all the latest statistics and information, let’s have a little fun with some Spotify facts. Here are a few things you didn’t know about the world’s most recognizable audio platform.Spotify Statistics – Highlights
Latest Update: Spotify Launches New Product Inspired by Last.fm
Key Features:
Spotify Worldwide Users Stats
Year Users (million per month) 2018 207 2019 271 2020 345 2021 406 2022 489 Q1 2023 515 Q2 2023 551 Year Premium Subscribers (millions) 2018 96 2019 124 2020 155 2021 180 2022 205 Q1 2023 210 Q2 2023 220 Spotify Users by Region
Q2 2019 Q2 2020 Q2 2021 Q2 2022 Q3 2023 Europe 36% 34% 34% 32% 29% North America 28% 26% 24% 22% 20% Latin America 21% 22% 22% 22% 21% Rest of the world 15% 18% 20% 24% 30% Spotify Users by Age
Age Representation (in percentage) 18–24 26% 25–34 29% 35–44 16% 45–54 11% 55+ 19% Spotify Users by Gender
2018 56% of male users 44% of female users 2021 56% of female users 44% of female users Spotify Investment Stats
Year Investors 2008 Northzone and Creandum 2009 Horizons Ventures (lead investor) 2010 Goldman Sachs (lead investor) 2011 Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) and Accel Partners 2013 Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV), Gibraltar Ventures, Matt Bellamy (individual investor) 2015 Rinkelberg Capital and some of the above partners 2018 Tencent Music Entertainment 2022 ValueAct Capital Spotify’s Acquisitions and Mergers
Date of acquisition Acquired business Nov 10, 2020 Megaphone (formerly Panoply Media) Jun 17, 2021 Podz Nov 11, 2021 Findaway Feb 16, 2022 Chartable Jun 12, 2022 Sonantic Jul 12, 2022 Heardle Oct 5, 2022 Kinzen Spotify’s Investments
Spotify Statistics: Revenue
Year Total Revenue (in EUR) Q1 2022 2.7 billion Q2 2022 2.9 billion Q3 2022 3.0 billion Q4 2022 3.2 billion Q1 2o23 3.0 billion Q2 2023 3.2 billion Spotify Revenue by User Type
Q2 2022 Q3 2022 Q4 2022 Q1 2023 Q2 2023 Premium users-generated revenue 2.5 billion 2.7 billion 2.7 billion 2.7 billion 2.8 billion Ad-supported users-generated revenue 360 million 380 million 449 million 329 million 404 million Spotify ARPU Stats
Year ARPU in EUR 2015 6.84 2016 6.2 2017 5.32 2018 4.89 2019 4.86 2020 4.31 2021 4.29 2022 4.52 Q1 2023 4.32 Q2 2023 4.27 Spotify Profit
Q2 2023 Q1 2023 2022 2021 2020 Total gross margin 24% 25% 25% 27% 26% Spotify Revenue Predictions
Total number of MAUs 572 million Predicted addition of 21 million MAUs Total number of Premium users 224 million Predicted addition of 4 million Premium users Total revenue €3.3 billion Predicted 600 bps headwind to growth Y/Y due to foreign currency exchange rates Consolidated gross margin 26% Predicted boost in podcasting and other cost of revenue Operating (Loss)/Income €(45) million Predicted 600 bps benefit to operating expense growth Y/Y due to foreign exchange movements Spotify Valuation
Spotify Genre Statistics
Spotify Music Stats
Music genre Popularity R’n’B/Hip Hop 27.3% Rock 16.5% Pop 12.8% Country 7.9% Latin 8.1% Dance/electronic 3.7% World music 2.5% Christian/gospel 1.7% Classical 0.8% Jazz 0.7% Artist Song Number of streams (in billions) The Weeknd Blinding Lights 3..846 Ed Sheeran Shape of You 3.656 Lewis Capaldi Someone You Loved 3.015 Post Malone and Swae Lee Sunflower 2.960 Tones and I Dance Monkey 2.918 Drake ft. Wizkid and Kyla One Dance 2.819 Post Malone ft. 21 Savage Rockstar 2.791 Kid Laroi ft. Justin Bieber Stay 2.790 The Weeknd ft. Daft Punk Starboy 2.744 Harry Styles As It Was 2.740 Spotify Podcast Statistics
Most Popular Podcasts on Spotify
Spotify Library Stats
Year Number of available music tracks 2018 around 40 million 2019 around 50 million 2020 around 70 million 2021 around 82 million 2022 around 100 million Oct 2023 over 100 million Year Number of podcasts 2019 around 700,000 2020 over 2.2 million 2021 over 3.6 million 2022 over 5 million Oct 2023 over 5 million Spotify Popular Artist Stats
Artist Number of streams Drake 66,675,110,080 Bad Bunny 62,970,559,615 Taylor Swift 60,284,771,183 The Weeknd 48,737,171,355 Ed Sheeran 45,059,576,581 Ariana Grande 38,668,419,473 Justin Bieber 38,641,711,116 Eminem 38,015,791,524 BTS 35,876,378,767 Post Malone 35,759,978,652 Spotify vs. Competitors
Spotify Fun Facts
Final Thoughts
References