As of 2021, Spotify generated $9.668 billion in revenue.
Year
Revenue
2021
$9.668 billion
2020
$7.880 billion
2019
$6.764 billion
2018
$5.259 billion
2017
$4.090 billion
2016
$2.952 billion
2015
$1.940 billion
2014
$1.084 billion
2013
$746 million
2012
$430.1 million
Spotify Revenue by Segment
Spotify generated $8.460 billion in revenue from premium subscribers in 2021, while it generated $1.208 billion in revenue from advertisements (ad support).
Spotify's main revenue source comes from users upgrading to a premium subscription. Spotify is a music streaming platform that gives users access to a large catalog of music. It operates on a freemium revenue model, providing a basic, limited, ad-supported service for free and an unlimited premium service for a fee.
Spotify was initially a small start-up in Stockholm, Sweden, founded by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon.
They created the platform in 2006 in response to the music industry's mounting piracy issue.
Two years after its launch, Spotify provided music lovers with a free service that included advertisements in the hopes that they would upgrade to the £10 a month ad-free subscription.
Stockholm-born Daniel Ek is the co-founder and CEO of Spotify, a music streaming service.The company has over 381 million users, with 172 million of them being paying subscribers.Ek owns nearly 9% of the shares but has 37% voting control thanks to a dual-class share system. In 2006, Ek and his business partner Martin Lorentzon founded the company in Sweden, and the product was launched in 2008. Ek pledged to invest 1 billion euros in European technology in September 2021, cofounding the venture capital firm Prima Materia.
Martin Lorentzon co-founded Spotify with his friend Daniel Ek in 2006, and the streaming music service debuted two years later. The service has over 180 million users, with 87 million of them paying subscribers. Lorentzon, a Swedish entrepreneur, owns 12% of the shares but has 43% voting control thanks to a dual-class share system. Lorentzon is a Silicon Valley veteran who held senior positions at search engine Alta Vista in the 1990s before going public with the European ad network Tradedoubler. In early April 2018, Spotify listed its shares on the New York Stock Exchange in an unusual direct listing, without the assistance of investment banks.
How many Spotify music tracks are played on average every month?
On Spotify, a track lasts three minutes and 17 seconds on average. For an active user, the typical number of music streamed on Spotify per month is probably around 473 tracks.
How many songs do most users have in their Spotify library?
Despite having unlimited access to millions of music, Spotify users had to adhere to a stringent 10,000 song limit per library, which was recently removed. Now, Spotify users can add as many tracks as they like to their library.
How much music time does the average Spotify user listen to?
The average Spotify user listens to music for 25 hours per month. Spotify is extremely popular for smartphone listening, with 54% of users listening to music via a mobile device.
Who are Spotify subscribers? (users demography)
Spotify users’ gender
A whopping 58.25% of spotify.com's users are men and 41.75 % are women.
Spotify's target audience is spread out around the world, with the majority of its users being in Europe. Young adults—Millennials and Gen Z—are the typical Spotify users, but there is also a sizable audience of elderly adults—55 and over—who also appreciate the music on the app.
Direct traffic is the main source of traffic to Spotify.com, accounting for 73.14% of desktop visits in the previous month. Search traffic comes in second with 15.99% of visits.
You can use Spotify for free, but its features are limited. On the free plan, music can be played in shuffle mode and you can skip up to six times per hour, every hour. Spotify Radio isn't available, but you can access Daily Mix playlists.
Is Spotify Premium free worth it?
However, if you need to hear the latest songs, want full control over playback, save offline and avoid ads, Spotify Premium is more than worth the cash. Even if Spotify HiFi ends up as a separate, even more, expensive tier, Premium would still likely be an attractive middle ground.
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About the author
Ch Daniel is the co-founder of SignHouse and chairman of the CH Group. Daniel is leading the development of SignHouse's product, as well as strategising how else the company can reach its main mission: empowering 100M+ to use the world's most efficient document organisational tools.
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