Spotify surpasses 140 million active users

Spotify is a music, podcast and video streaming service, and was officially launched on 7 October 2008. It is developed by startup Spotify AB in Stockholm, Sweden. It provides digital rights management-protected content from record labels and media companies. Spotify is a freemium service, meaning that basic features are free with advertisements, while additional features, including improved streaming quality and offline music downloads, are offered via paid subscriptions.

Spotify is available in most of Europe, most of the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and parts of Asia. It is available for most modern devices, including Windows, macOS, and Linux computers, as well as iOS and Android smartphones and tablets. Music can be browsed or searched for via various parameters, such as artist, album, genre, playlist, or record label. Users can create, edit and share playlists, share tracks on social media, and make playlists with other users. Spotify provides access to over 30 million songs. As of June 2017, it has over 140 million monthly active users, and as of March 2017, it has over 50 million paying subscribers.

Spotify has surpassed 140 million monthly active users, the company announced yesterday. Back in March, the service announced it had 50 million paying subscribers, which puts its free user base around 90 million.

The numbers are truly massive, and they show just how much of a lead Spotify has over Apple Music, which recently announced it has 27 million subscribers. Given its subscriber growth rate, Spotify should have no trouble keeping its lead as the biggest paid music streaming service over Apple. But while that may be comforting to Spotify, right now its troubles are largely financial.

Spotify is pushing to go public this year to avoid penalty fees from the $1 billion debt round it raised back in 2016. The company will reportedly go with a direct listing instead of an initial public offering, which would allow Spotify to avoid raising more money and let its employees and investors cash out as they wish.

Spotify still doesn’t have new licensing deals completed with Sony Music or Warner Music, and can’t go forward until those deals are completed. It has wrapped up a new deal with Universal Music, and the terms should allow it to bring in more revenue going forward. Landing similar deals with the other two major labels should help Spotify cut down on its annual losses.

The company had an operating loss of $389 million in 2016, according to its annual financial disclosure.