Spotify: artists with the most monthly listeners worldwide 2020

As of March 3, 2020, the artist with the most monthly listeners on Spotify worldwide was Justin Bieber, closely followed by Billie Eilish and Ed Sheeran. At that time, Justin Bieber had a total of 66.06 million monthly listeners on the streaming service. The 27-year-old Canadian singer-songwriter is one of the world’s best-selling music artists. In 2020, he released his new studio album “Changes” following a five-year break during which he toured with his 2015 album “Purpose” before taking some time off from music making. In the previous year, 2019, the artist with the most monthly listeners on Spotify was Ed Sheeran with a total of 69.15 million monthly listeners on the streaming service, the largest number ever recorded on Spotify. It was Sheeran's fourth studio album 'No. 6 Collaborations Project' which propelled Sheeran to the top of the list, a project which saw the British artist work with the likes of Eminem, Bruno Mars and 50 Cent. Other popular musicians on the ranking that year were Justin Bieber and Khalid, both of whom also worked with Sheeran on his latest album.

Spotify streams as an indicator of the popularity of artists

The number of streams listened to on Spotify is an important indicator of the success of an artist and the popularity of specific songs, since Spotify is one of the most popular streaming platforms worldwide. Over the last years, the Swedish audio streaming and media giant has been steadily growing, reaching a revenue of 7.88 billion euros in 2020. The majority of this revenue was generated through premium subscription rather than advertisement on the platform. The number of global employees of Spotify has been rising alongside the company’s growth, with most of them working in the United States. However, while Spotify is currently the most popular global music steaming provider, there are other important market players in the business, most importantly Apple Music.

The music streaming market is booming

The trending popularity of these services is directly related to significant developments that are changing the music industry. Changes such as the move from physical music sales towards a more digital form of music consumption benefits streaming services as they gain more subscribers. This overall trend that has emerged over the last two decades has accelerated due to coronavirus pandemic of 2020 during which people started to increase their audio consumption, generating a higher demand for audio entertainment.