The company also said that podcast listening hours nearly doubled between Q4 2019 and Q4 2020. That means Spotify’s podcast audience is now more than 86 million people.

25% of its monthly active users now listen to podcasts, up from 22% the previous quarter. Spotify also offered some updates on its non-music business. Music rightsholders will be keen to see Spotify match that in other key markets, although also for rivals to follow suit. That has led to the company upping its family plan price in 25 more countries this week, but also “full portfolio price increases in Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Iceland”.

Early results of the price increases have been highly encouraging, as we have seen no meaningful impacts to churn or customer intake in these markets,” explained Spotify. “In October, we raised the price of the Family Plan in 7 markets (Australia, Belgium, Switzerland, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia) alongside Duo in Colombia. However, in its financials release, Spotify cited positive results from its recent experimentation with higher prices. Last quarter its ARPU was €4.26, down 8% year-on-year.

Spotify’s average revenue per user (ARPU) for subscribers continues to fall, however. In 2020 as a whole, Spotify added 74 million net new monthly active users, and 30 million premium subscribers – thus averaging 2.5 million new subscribers a month on the latter front. Spotify’s quarterly revenues grew by 17% year-on-year to €2.17bn, although the company remains in the red with a quarterly operating loss of €69m, and a net loss of €125m. That was year-on-year growth of 27% and 24% respectively, with ad-supported (free) users up 30% to 199 million. The streaming service ended the year with 345 million monthly active users, including 155 million premium subscribers.

Spotify’s latest financial results are out, covering the fourth quarter of 2020, and thus the full calendar year.

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