Spotify crosses half a billion monthly active listeners

Spotify reached a new milestone on Wednesday, crossing 500 million monthly active listeners as it launched a major app redesign with vertical feeds to help drive users to discover new content.

The music-streaming giant announced it’s rolling out what it calls its biggest app redesign to date which includes a new “dynamic” mobile interface aimed at helping listeners easily discover new audio content while giving creators new ways to share their work. The new features include smart shuffle and previews of podcasts and music playlists on its audio streaming platform.

Announcing the rollout, the company said:

“The new Spotify will roll out in waves to our 500 million+ monthly active users beginning today.”

Spotify also provided an update on its annual music royalties report, revealing that the count of artists earning over $1 million and those generating over $10,000 had more than doubled over the past five years.

In recent years, the Swedish company has invested heavily in building up its podcast and audiobooks business as part of its effort to attract users and advertisers. The company also announced what it calls a “new re-imagined user interface” at its Stream On event.

Meanwhile, early this year, Spotify announced it was laying off 6% of its employees, as the chief content and advertising business officer, Dawn Ostroff, departed from the company.

Spotify, which had about 9,800 full-time employees as of September 2022, said it expects to incur about 35 million euros (about $38.06 million) to 45 million euros in severance-related charges. Back in October, Spotify had said it would slow down hiring for the rest of 2022 and into 2023.

Spotify is one of the world’s most popular music streaming services, with over 356 million monthly active users, including 158 million premium subscribers. The music-streaming behemoth has seen explosive growth in revenue and customer base in recent years.

Spotify started in October 2008 in Stockholm, Sweden as a commercial music streaming service that provides restricted digital content from a range of record labels and artists. The company also provides a freemium service; basic features are free with advertisements or limitations.