Spotify celebrates user growth – but continues to lose money

Spotify, the music and podcast streaming giant, saw significant growth in subscribers and revenue in the first quarter of 2023.

The audio streaming giant has 515 million monthly active users (MUAs) by April 2023, up from 489 million at the end of December.

Stockholm-based Spotify also reported that its 210 million subscriber base is paying for its paid Spotify Premium service.

In the first quarter of 2023, Spotify’s revenue grew 14% to $3.3 billion, just short of its $3.4 billion target.

Spotify co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek appeared calm about his underperforming earnings.

“I can’t help but feel incredibly excited about the progress our team has made this quarter,” Ek said in a recent earnings call.

“In fact, this quarter represents our strongest first quarter since going public. We have seen our biggest MAU growth in the past two quarters.”

In the first quarter of 2023, the company reported a loss of $248 million.

The news comes after Spotify started the year with a series of mass layoffs.

In January 2023, the company announced that it would cut 6% of its global workforce to weather a tough economic environment.

Spotify laid off about 600 employees as advertisers and consumers tried to tighten their purse strings.

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