GoKawiilSpotify has its share of problems including frequent outages and AI gunk, but subscriber growth certainly isn't one of them. In its latest earnings report, the company announced that it now has 300 million Premium subscribers, up nine percent from the same period last year. That's nearly three times more than the next largest streaming competitor, Apple Music, which is estimated to have around 100 million paid subscribers.
Total monthly active users including those on the free, ad-supported tier now number 777 million, slightly under the company's forecast. All of that helped Spotify take in €4.78 billion in revenue ($5.5 billion), while earning €545 million ($628 million) in net revenue, with gross margin at an all-time high of 33.4 percent.
Spotify said the boost in gross margin was driven by its gain in Premium subscribers that outpaced music, audiobook and podcast costs. The company called out new initiatives from last quarter like Reserved that gives fans exclusive early access to concert tickets, and a new feature that allows AI to generate personal podcasts for users.
Not all was box seats and champagne for the streamer, though. Spotify experienced no less than two major outages last quarter in May and July, both of which lasted for hours. The Swedish company has also been criticized for allowing AI slop to proliferate on its platform, despite introducing verification badges and other tools.