Spotify at 15: Half a Billion Users, 220 M Subs

When Spotify launched its music streaming service in several European countries on October 7, 2008, few people would have thought that this obscure Stockholm-based startup would eventually grow into the world’s most popular music platform. Back then, music streaming was still in its infancy, accounting for a small fraction of global music revenues, but eventually Spotify’s early bet on streaming paid off.

As the following chart illustrates, it took a while for Spotify to really take off. By the time of its fifth birthday in 2013, the streaming pioneer had roughly 30 million active users and 8 million premium subscribers. Since then, Spotify's active user and premium subscriber numbers have continued to grow steadily though, reaching 551 million and 220 million, respectively, halfway through 2023.

All that user growth notwithstanding, Spotify still struggles to become profitable. Last year, the company that went public in 2018 and is currently valued at roughly $30 billion reported a net loss of €430 million on €11.7 billion in revenue, most of which coming from premium subscriptions. That brings Spotify's accumulated losses since 2009 close to €4 billion, putting into question the viability of the streaming model, especially considering that many artists feel unfairly renumerated by Spotify and other streaming services.