Spotify has been reaching strides and more with the increase of their paid members, as mentioned by CNET. The music app just hit 456 million total listeners, including those who listen with ads and 195 million paid subscribers, at the end of September.
The music streaming service predicted, that it will surpass its third-quarter report by the end of the year, and reach the 200 million milestone. Analysts predicted based on a survey by Refinitiv that Spotify would gain 6.76 million new subscribers, while Spotify believed it to be just 6 million.
However, the music app gained 7 million new paying members, which is more than what both predicted.
Number of Spotify Users
Back in July, the company's guidance record showed 450 million users. It has now gone up to five percent since Spotify's announcement this October, saying that 456 million people, including those who use it with ads, now use the service at least once a month.
With these records, it's safe to say that Spotify is the leading subscription music out of all the others. Apple Music, also famous among the industry of music subscribers, still has not disclosed its paid membership, and they haven't for three years now. This means that we will not be able to see how far ahead Spotify is.
Although back in June 2019, Apple claimed that they had 60 million subscribers, and Spotify had 108 million in their second-quarter report in 2019, according to Statista. That gives us a rough estimate of how the competition is.
What The Future Holds for Spotify
Spotify now predicts that they will be 202 million paying listeners by the end of the year, and monthly listeners will hike up to 479 million. This is entirely possible since people can still listen to music on Spotify if they don't mind the ads.
Read Also: Spotify Tests Podcast Creation Tool on its App - How Does it Work?
What Spotify Can Offer
Spotify has millions of songs you can browse through, ranging from different genres and artists. It also offers podcasts with a wide variety of topics you can choose from, whether it's discussions, interviews, or stories.
You can listen for free with ads, and it will still provide recommendations based on your listening history, but of course, there are downsides. The free version can only provide 160kbit/s in terms of audio quality, as opposed to 320kbit/s in Premium. There is also a limit to how many skips you have, according to Android Authority.
If you did subscribe to Spotify Premium, you'll have unlimited skips, and no interruptions from ads. You will have better audio quality, and download the songs so you can listen to them within the app offline. If you've had the app for a while, it will generate a playlist of all the songs you listened to frequently from years back, as well as the songs you listen to on repeat, presently. When you create a playlist, there will be recommendations below the list, based on the songs within the playlist.
Related Article: Spotify Homepage Gets a Huge Redesign - Music and Podcast Now Separated?
