Spotify crosses 500 million monthly active users, beating its own expectations.

Spotify, one of the world’s largest music streaming services, has now reached 515 million monthly active users, a 22% year-over-year increase. The company said in its statement Q1 2023 earnings report That was the strongest first quarter since going public back in 2018. It notes that the increase in numbers exceeded its guidance by 15 million.

Speaking of premium users, Spotify now has 210 million paying subscribers with 15% year-over-year growth. It said the subscriber acquisition boosted the company’s total revenue by 14 percent to €3 billion. However, the growing numbers share the stage with the company’s cost-cutting efforts, including cutting marketing costs. Spotify also confirmed earlier this year that it would lay off 6 percent of its workforce.

The Stockholm-based streaming service introduced a number of features during the quarter such as AI DJ for creating personalized playlists, a new mobile UI, NFT-enabled playlists, discovery mode, and more. More recently, the company has also introduced a new iPhone lock screen widget and added Strava integration. However, there is no word on when its HiFi lossless audio tier will hit the market.

At the time of writing, Spotify stock was trading at $138 per share, up 5.19% since the open. It shows that he reported that investors are reacting positively to the increase in users.