Spotify on Thursday released its financial results for the fiscal quarter ending September 30, 2020. In an official press release announcing the highlights, the company said that the service saw a massive surge in the number of monthly active users (MAUs), which grew 29% YoY to reach 320 million. The lion’s share of the growth came from Latin America and the Rest of World, which grew at 30% and 51%, respectively.
The MAU was also boosted by a rise in the company’s subscriber base in India, thanks largely to successful marketing campaigns. According to the company, one of the most popular programs in the country is the daily podcast ‘Horoscopes Today’ that was launched last month in association with Parcast. As its name suggests, it offers horoscopes for each of the 12 signs per day, 365 days a year.
Meanwhile, some of the other high-performing markets include Russia, CIS and the Balkans, while North America and Western Europe grew at just about 4% and 1%, respectively. Explaining the difference in growth rates, Spotify said: “While we saw outperformance in Europe in aggregate, we did see a slight shift in Q3 seasonality among a few of our larger markets as we believe summer demand may have been pulled forward into the March and April lockdown periods”.
As far as paid subscribers are concerned, Spotify said that the number rose 27% YoY to 144 million during the quarter. Russia has apparently been the ‘most successful new market launch’ for the company, representing ‘the largest portion of subscriber outperformance for the quarter’. The Google Nest Mini promotion in the UK and Canada also helped increase the number of premium subscribers in these markets, the company said.
In terms of finances, revenues grew 14% to €1.98 billion (~$2.32 billion), but the company still reported a loss of €101 million (~$118 million). Revenue per user dropped 10% to €4.19 (~$4.92) from the same period last year.
