Spotify saw a surprising rise of subscribers, but its lone-wolf status prevented it from making a turnover

Spotify is a music streaming staple at this point. Everyone has heard of it and most of us have used it at some point in our lives. Heck, most of us probably even have it installed on some of the best smartphones around.

The app’s popularity is growing, even despite the presence of competition such as Apple Music, Amazon Prime and Google’s YouTube Music. But if that is the case, why are we seeing reports like this one from the Wall Street Journal, which comments on the fact that Spotify is losing money?

That doesn’t necessarily mean that they are losing subscribers, though. In fact, the report details that the first quarter of 2023 has been one of the strongest for Spotify in years. Subscriber count has grown to 515 million (a 22% increase), so what gives?

Well, it might be more so a case of “what takes”.



Spotify, as a company, reported a loss of $248 million for the very same quarter and save a handful of examples, this seems to be a trend. And Spotify’s execs very much have this coming every time, but despite that the company's goals continue to be growth and innovation, instead of financial stability.

That being said, this time around, it is sort of ironic. After all, this very quarter, Spotify laid off 6% of its staff — about 600 employees — in an attempt to save some money. Well, we can’t say how much the company actually saved, but with this overall context, it sounds like the company was trying to lose less money instead.

So, what can be the reason for this? Well, sustainability is a thing. Unlike Apple, Google and Amazon, who are offering music streaming as part of their overall ecosystems, Spotify relies solely on its singular service in order to stay afloat.

Sure, the company is expanding into podcasts and audiobooks in limited regions, but will that change anything? Only time will tell. Hopefully, the company’s continuous efforts to improve will result in a more financially stable year… Eventually.