20 Spotify Statistics 2023: Usage, Revenue & More

Welcome to our roundup of the top Spotify statistics.

Online music streaming platforms changed the game as far as the consumption of music goes. But among the many players in the market, Spotify is emerging as the platform to beat. It’s not surprising to find someone with a Spotify account.

In this post, we’re taking a deep dive into the Spotify stats you need to know. We’ll be looking at the platforms growth, listening trends, revenue, and more.

Let’s get started:

Spotify usage statistics

People have different Spotify listening habits. For instance, did you know that some would use Spotify to play music for their pets? As it turns out, a lot of people do according to Spotify user statistics.

Some gamers would use the Spotify app to listen to music as they play their games. And it’s also becoming the go-to platform for those that like listening to podcasts. 

Here are some of the most interesting statistics and facts on how people use Spotify every day.

1. Spotify is the most-used music streaming service.

How popular is Spotify? As it turns out, it’s the most popular around. And it’s leading its rivals by a significant margin.

The numbers show Spotify is sitting comfortably at the top with a 31% share of the streaming music subscription market. That’s more than double the market share of leading rivals, Apple Music and Amazon Music.

Trailing behind we have Deezer with 2%. A very good platform that shows a lot of promise.

Source: Midia Research

2. 71% of pet owners play music for pets.

As it turns out, pet owners will play music with their pets. In a Spotify survey, the streaming platform reveals that 71% of respondents do so.

The said survey involved data from 5,000 pet owners in the US, UK, Spain, Italy, and Australia.

It goes even further to say that 8 in 10 owners believed that their pets like music. 57% would dance with their pets and 69% said that they would sing to their pets.

55% of the respondents said that they think their pets have the same taste in music as them.

Source: ABC News

3. Spotify is growing in popularity in the gaming community.

Gamers are some of the biggest users of Spotify. There is a 55% increase in console users that are streaming music from their systems — with the most popular genre being rap and trap music.

The most popular music being streamed via consoles include The Box by Roddy Ricch, Blueberry Faygo by Lil Mosey, Goosebumps by Travis Scott, Rockstar by DaBaby, and Falling by Trevor Daniel.

Gaming soundtracks are also popular on Spotify such as the ones from Minecraft, Doom, and Death Stranding.

Source: NME

4. More people in the US use Spotify for podcast consumption than Apple.

Spotify claims that it now has more podcast listeners than its rival, Apple Podcasts — at least in the United States.

This was revealed during Spotify’s Q3 2021 earnings call. When it overtook Apple’s numbers, Spotify became the number one podcast platform that US listeners use the most. This achievement is likely due to the huge investment that the company made to acquire podcast content.

In the call, Spotify said that its monthly active users grew by 19% year-over-year to reach 381 million users in the quarter. 

Apple Podcasts had, at the time, 28.2 million monthly US podcast listeners.

Source: TechCrunch

5. Eight million Australians choose Spotify as their music streaming platform.

In Australia, 12.7 million users have started using music streaming services in an average of four weeks — is an increase of 3.7 million from three years ago. But out of all the streaming platforms available, people gravitated to using Spotify. 

As of 2020, 8 million Australians were using Spotify. That’s double the numbers in 2017. 

Spotify’s biggest rival in that region is YouTube Music with 5.5 million Australian users. 

Who streams using Spotify in Australia? Spotify seems to attract young women under 35 years of age who likely have a full-time white-collar job.

Source: Roy Morgan Research

Spotify business statistics

Spotify is experiencing massive growth. It’s been able to gain and sustain its active monthly listeners. Spotify’s financial reports show that the company is getting more listeners almost every quarter.

Its growth can be attributed to the different ways the company is evolving. For instance, Spotify artists can now link to an ecommerce page where they sell their merchandise. It’s also partnering with other companies to boost its podcasts. 

All of these efforts contribute to the success that Spotify is enjoying today.

Here are statistics that highlight Spotify’s business-related achievements.

6. Spotify grew its monthly active users by 18% in Q4 of 2021.

In its financial report for Q4 2021, Spotify reveals that its monthly active users (MAU) grew by 18% year-over-year (YoY). That translates to 406 million users. This is also up from the previous quarter’s 381 million users.

Premium subscribers also grew by 16% YoY to 180 million during the same period. In the previous quarter, Spotify only had 172 million premium subscribers. Europe and Latin America led the growth.

Source: Spotify Investors

7. Spotify is dominating the podcast market thanks to its Anchor acquisition.

Spotify says it’s dominating the podcasting market because it managed to acquire Anchor, a podcasting creation software, for $100 million.

80% of podcasts on Spotify were created using Anchor. This translates to 1 million shows in Spotify’s 2020 catalog. In total, Anchor powers 70% of Spotify’s podcast catalog. That’s 1.3 million out of the 1.9 million shows Spotify has in its pocket.

Anchor’s top five markets—according to Spotify—are the US, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, and Great Britain. India is seen as an emerging market with nearly 40,000 shows made using Anchor.

Source: The Verge

8. Spotify uploads 60,000 new tracks every day.

Spotify confirms through its Co-Head of Music Jeremy Erlich that the company adds 60,000 new tracks in a day. That amounts to 22 million tracks uploaded in a single year. It also means that a new song enters Spotify every 1.4 seconds.

In total, Spotify has over 90 million tracks in its database. By 2022, the company is expected to reach the 100-million milestone. For context, Spotify only used to upload 40,000 songs a day back in 2019.

Source: Music Business Worldwide

9. Spotify partnered with Shopify to give artists more creative freedom.

Artists on Spotify will now be able to link to their Shopify accounts. That way, artists can go beyond sharing music. They can launch a full-fledged brand with merchandising opportunities. 

Spotify released statistics showing that the creator economy is estimated to be worth over $100 billion with over 50 million creators. Now Spotify artists can join in on the action.

How will this work?

When a user browses a Spotify channel, they’ll see products associated with an artist. They can then browse through the artist’s product catalog. For artists, it means they can manage their ecommerce platform from one location.

The goal is to create an ecosystem that supports artists both through audio streaming and ecommerce.

Source: Marketing Mag

Spotify artist statistics and facts

A lot of artists on Spotify have seen their share of success. For example, Bad Bunny had the most streams in 2021. Olivia Rodrigo, BTS, and The Weeknd also have their share of achievements.

In this section, let’s look at some of the statistics relating to the artists that found success on Spotify in the last couple of years. 

10. Bad Bunny is the most-streamed artist on Spotify in 2021.

The top-performing artist on Spotify for 2021 is Bad Bunny, a Puerto Rican Reggaeton performer. He has over 9.1 billion streams — and that’s without releasing an album throughout the year.

He’s followed by Taylor Swift who released the album Red, a compilation of her previous hits. There’s also the Korean pop group BTS.

As for the top song, that goes to Olivia Rodrigo’s Drivers License. The song managed to get 1.1 billion streams that year. This is followed by Lil Nas X’s song Montero (Call Me By Your Name).

Source: Spotify Newsroom

11. 13,000 artist catalogs earned at least $50,000 in royalties.

The Verge reports that there were 13,000 Spotify artist catalogs that earned at least $50,000 in royalties. It goes on to say that Spotify has paid over $23 billion in royalties to rights holders. 

$5 billion of the $23 billion in royalties for 2020 alone. That is up from 2017’s $3.3 billion.

The report also mentions that there are 1.2 million artists with over 1,000 listeners on the platform. 15% (or 184,500) of the catalogs were able to generate recording and publishing royalties of at least $1,000.

It should be pointed out that these royalties go to rights holders and not the artists directly. Rights holders include distributors and record labels.

Source: The Verge

12. Olivia Rodrigo’s single sets the record for most Spotify streams in a day.

Olivia Rodrigo’s song, Driver’s License, set the Spotify record for most streams in one day (for a non-holiday song, that is). 

This pop song managed to get 15.17 million streams globally on January 11, 2021. The next day, the song broke the record anew after getting 17.01 million streams on January 12.

Source: CNN Entertainment

13. K-Pop has been streamed more than 41 billion times on Spotify.

Between January 2014 and January 2020, K-Pop’s share of listening on Spotify increased by more than 1,800%. There have been more than 41 billion K-Pop streams on the platform. And users have added K-Pop singles to more than 96 million playlists.

It should also be noted that since 2014, K-Pop has been streamed more than 134 billion minutes on Spotify. 

In all of the markets that Spotify has a presence in, the biggest consumers of K-Pop are Egypt, Vietnam, France, and Columbia. The top-streamed K-Pop artists are BTS, Blackpink, EXO, Twice, and Red Velvet.

Source: Music Business Worldwide

14. Metallica had a big year on Spotify.

Metallica released its Spotify numbers for 2019 and—as it turns out—that was a really big year for the band. 

It had a total of 1 billion streams from 45.9 million listeners across 79 countries. The total duration of streams amounted to 89.9 million hours.

Source: Loudwire

15. The Weeknd surpasses Justin Bieber as the most listened pop artist.

The record that Justin Bieber held on to for 190 consecutive days has been beaten by The Weeknd.

Bieber had 83.3 million monthly listeners when he got the title in August 2021. The Weeknd beat that when he received 85.6 million listeners. What’s even more impressive is that The Weeknd didn’t even release an album in 2021.

However, Bieber fans still have something to be happy about. He still holds the record for all-time monthly listeners that he got when he had 94.7 million monthly listeners.

Source: Yahoo News

Spotify innovations statistics and facts

Spotify wouldn’t be in the position that it’s in if it weren’t for the innovations it introduced. The Loud and Clear tool allowed artists to figure out how Spotify is handling its payout structure. And the addition of lyrics—something users have been clamoring for—is finally a reality.

The company is also introducing new ways for its users to discover and listen to music.

Here are some interesting Spotify innovations worth looking into.

16. Spotify launched Loud and Clear to be more transparent about payout distribution.

Loud and Clear is Spotify’s attempt to make it clear how it pays its artists and how the money is distributed. There’s also an online calculator that will let interested artists figure out where their songs rank on Spotify. 

To clarify, Spotify calculates streamshare by adding up the number of times music was streamed. It then divides it by the total number of streams in the market.

Spotify gives this example:

If an artist receives 1 in every 1,000 streams in Mexico, then the rights holder will receive $1,000 from the Mexican royalty pool. A country’s royalty pool is based on subscription and music advertising revenues in that market.

Source: Loud and Clear

17. Spotify added real-time lyrics to the platform.

Spotify users have been asking for in-app lyrics for the longest time. And now they finally got what they wanted.

The company announced that it will launch a Lyrics feature for all of its users worldwide. This is available whether you’re using the free version or the premium one. The feature is made possible thanks to Spotify’s partnership with Musixmatch. 

Before the real-time lyrics feature, Spotify users had to settle for Behind the Lyrics. While it did provide lyrics to users, this feature interrupted users with facts, background information, and other data that users did not want or need.

Spotify will now remove Behind the Lyrics to make room for Lyrics.

Source: TechCrunch

18. Spotify Blend will create a playlist for your and your loved ones.

Spotify makes it easier to bond with the people in your life through music with its Blend feature. 

Blend Playlists make it possible to blend the musical tastes of two people into one playlist. This is a great way to bond over music. It’s also a fantastic way of listening to new artists and songs. 

There are other fun things to discover like Taste Match Scores which grades your listening preferences to your friends, partner, or family. There are also shareable data stories that are unique to every listening pair which you can then post on your social media channels.

This feature is available to free and premium users.

Source: Spotify Newsroom

Spotify and Covid-19 statistics and facts

Like all companies, Spotify experienced problems during the height of the pandemic. You’ve probably heard of the issues brought by one of its biggest podcasts, The Joe Rogan Experience. Spotify had to develop ways to end the backlash it got from its critics.

It’s also interesting to note how the pandemic caused people to change their listening habits. Some even changed the type of content they listen to. 

Here are some of the statistics relating to Spotify and the Covid-19 pandemic.

19. Spotify will now link Covid content to facts after controversy.

Spotify received backlash for misinformation on the platform — to be more specific, comments made on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast about Covid-19. This led to a number of vocal critics demanding changes be made to the platform. This includes Neil Young who demanded that his songs get pulled from the platform.

In an effort to appease people, Spotify will now guide listeners should they listen to discussions about the pandemic while on the platform. There will be a link to a Covid-19 hub within Spotify with data-driven facts and up-to-date information as shared by scientists, doctors, and other experts in the field.

Source: Al Jazeera

20. Spotify usage on TV and game consoles rose by 50% during the pandemic.

The Covid-19 pandemic changed the way people use Spotify. For instance, there was a massive drop in Spotify usage in cars, wearables, and web platforms. That’s understandable since people have started working from home then.

Usage on TV and game consoles rose by 50%.

The biggest changes happened in everyone’s morning routines. At the height of the pandemic, every day seemed like the weekend.

The type of music people consumed also changed. Spotify users were suddenly searching for music in the chill and instrumental categories. There’s also been an increase in the consumption of wellness and meditation podcasts.

Source: CNN Business

Final thoughts

That wraps up our look at Spotify usage, growth, and trends.

Spotify remains the platform to beat in terms of streaming music. However, it’s focus on podcasting is proving to be a good move. Not just for Spotify but also for podcasters as well.

Check out these other useful stats roundups:

• Apple Music statistics
• Music industry statistics
• Guitar industry statistics
• YouTube statistics

Finally, check out our guide to selling music online, if you’d like to get started in the music industry.