Spotify Hits 113 Million Paid Users, Says Growing Twice as Fast as Apple Music

Music streaming giant Spotify today reported its financial results for Q3 2019, announcing better than expected subscriber growth, gross margins, and operating profit. The company also revealed that it finished Q3 with 113 million premium subscribers worldwide, up 31% year-on-year, and is growing twice as fast as Apple Music.

“Relative to Apple, the publicly available data shows that we are adding roughly twice as many subscribers per month as they are,” Spotify noted in its report.

With 248 million total monthly active users (MAUs), up 30% from the 191 million it reported for the same period last year, the company reported revenue of €1.7 billion ($1.9 billion), up 28% year-on-year:

“We continue to see exponential growth in podcast hours streamed (up approximately 39% Q/Q) and early indications that podcast engagement is driving a virtuous cycle of increased overall engagement and significantly increased conversion of free to paid users. The correlations in our data sets are clearly apparent. We are working to prove causality. Overall, the business is performing strongly.”

Spotify also announces that its chief financial officer (CFO) Barry McCarthy will be leaving the company in January after nearly five years, with Paul Vogel taking over.