Spotify Overtakes Apple to Hit 100 Million Paid Subscribers
The company, however, still reported a major loss during the first quarter.
Spotify officially reigns king of premium subscribers, hitting the 100 million mark and beating Apple’s 50 million number. The audio streaming platform announced the feat during a 2019 1Q financial performance review, boasting an impressive year-on-year increase of 32 percent. Despite its India launch being met with a copyright lawsuit from Warner Music, the company garnered an additional two million users and pushed its total number of monthly active worldwide users to 217 million.
By the end of 2019 2Q, the company expects to have between 222 to 228 million monthly active worldwide users and 107 to 110 million premium subscribers. Spotify is also looking to expand and upgrade its podcast category—recently acquiring Gimlet Media, Anchor and Parcast, and it is currently creating a similar method to ad-supported music streaming.
Even with the achievement, the company reported a $159 million USD loss during the first quarter. Additionally, Apple is still winning over the US market with 28 million subscribers compared to Spotify’s 26 million.
In related news, Beyoncé’s Lemonade is now up on Spotify, three years after its release.
