The world’s largest music streaming service, Spotify, revealed that it has 205 million paying customers as of the end of 2022 The Swedish business reported a net loss of 430 million euros ($465 million) for the year after announcing last week that it would be laying off nearly six percent of its workers to save expenses. According to Factset, analysts had predicted a loss of 441 million euros. Revenue for the entire year came in at 11.7 billion euros, up 21% from the prior year, which was also slightly over expectations. The business credited the increase in paying customers, which increased by 14 percent to 205 million from experts’ predictions of 202 million, to robust development in all areas, particularly Latin America. Spotify has already crossed 200 million paying members for the first time. The business said that, among other things, marketing initiatives, the Christmas season, and high growth among Gen Z customers had all helped it. At the end of the year, there were 489 million monthly users overall, including subscribers utilizing the free version. According to Spotify, 500 million users should be reached by 2023. Since its inception, the Stockholm-based but New York-listed marketplace has only seldom reported a quarterly profit. Despite seeing tremendous subscription growth and having an advantage over competitors like Apple Music and Amazon Music, it has consistently reported yearly losses. Daniel Ek, the founder and CEO of Spotify, revealed last week that the company will be eliminating 600 employees out of a total of 10,000, after similar actions taken by other major players in the digital sector.
