
Spotify said on Tuesday that the number of active users rose more than expected at the end of the second quarter. This came a day after the music streaming giant raised prices for its paid service.
The Swedish company, which is traded on the New York Stock Exchange, said that the number of daily users rose by 27% from the previous year to 551 million, which was 21 million more than it had expected.
The number of paying subscribers also went up, by 17%, to 220 million, which is 3 million more than was predicted.
On Monday, the company said it was raising prices for premium subscribers in a number of markets around the world. This was similar to what Apple and Amazon had done with their music services.
Even though the number of users went up, Spotify had a bigger financial loss of 247 million euros (₱15 billion) in the second quarter than it did in the same time last year ₱11.7 billion,.
The company said it was primarily impacted by charges related to our actions to streamline operations and reduce costs.
In early June, Spotify announced it would be cutting some 200 positions working with podcasts.
READ: Spotify’s Latest Tech Layoffs
That move came after a January announcement that Spotify was cutting around 600 jobs ― equaling about 6 percent of its workforce ― following similar moves by other tech industry giants.
Spotify has invested heavily since its launch to fuel growth with expansions into new markets and, in later years, exclusive content such as podcasts.
It has invested over a billion dollars into podcasts alone.
In 2017, the company had around 3,000 staff members, more than tripling the figure to around 9,800 at the end of 2022.
The company has never posted a full-year net profit and only occasionally quarterly profits despite its success in the online music market.
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