According to Spotify’s latest earnings results, the global music streaming platform had a total of 210 million paying subscribers worldwide by the end of Q1 2023 (via Music Business Worldwide).
The company also revealed during its earnings call that added 5 million net Premium subscribers in the first quarter of 2023. Now, specific data regarding Spotify’s subscriber count in the largest music market, the United States, has been revealed.
At the annual meeting of the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA), NMPA CEO and President David Israelite disclosed that Spotify had 44.4 million paying subscribers in the US as of February 2023.
Israelite highlighted that the NMPA was able to determine the subscriber numbers for each platform in the US, which had not been made public before.
In the same market, Apple Music, a rival to Spotify, had 32.6 million subscribers in February, making it the second-largest subscription music service.
While Apple Music announced surpassing 60 million global subscribers in June 2019, no official figures have been released since then. Estimates from Business of Apps suggest Apple Music had 88 million global subscribers as of June 2022.
Israelite also noted that both Apple Music and Amazon Music experienced subscriber growth despite increasing their subscription prices, contrasting the calls for Spotify to raise its own prices.
Although Spotify has resisted raising the price of its $9.99 Premium subscription tier in the US, recent reports indicate the company is preparing to introduce a more expensive tier.
This upgraded “Supremium” subscription is expected to offer HiFi audio quality and expanded access to audiobooks.
Spotify plans to introduce this feature in the US market in October, following its initial launch in international markets. Currently, the company only sells audiobooks individually through its app.
