Spotify’s Listeners Now Number More Than 140 Million Every Month

Spotify continues to make itself heard. According to a blog article written and posted by Brian Benedik, the head of sales at Spotify, no less than 140 million users are listening the music streaming service on a monthly basis. About a year ago, the company had revealed that it had reached 100 million listeners every month, which means that over the last twelve months or so, Spotify has comfortably grown its listener base each month by a cool 40 million more. Let us put 140 million monthly listeners into context -- that volume is almost twice as big as the volume of active listeners of Pandora, which is considered by many in the industry as the closest rival to Spotify. 

The last half decade has seen consumers move on from purchasing music directly (like buying tracks from iTunes) to just signing up for a music streaming subscription service. Providers such as Spotify and Pandora do have an advantage over iTunes -- people can just pay for a monthly subscription and get to enjoy access to a vast catalogue of music both old and new, or for those with tight budgets, they can also opt to get the free version, whose library is still pretty extensive.

As for Spotify, it has appeared to have found a foolproof formula, which involves balancing a paid premium membership offering with a free tier that is supported by ads. This has allowed the company to stay ahead of its rivals in a very competitive field (and maybe even become a game changer). Apart from Pandora, Spotify is also trying to outdo Apple Music, a relatively new entrant to music streaming, but has since accumulated some 27 million subscribers. But with 50 million subscribers of its own, Spotify has a comfortable lead -- well at least for now.

To Spotify’s credit, it is always keeping itself busy in trying to come up with something new to offer. Just recently this week, the music streaming giant has added Eventbrite to its list of concert event suggestions. Concert listings are nothing new for Spotify, thanks to a partnership deal struck with Songkick. Its users could buy concert tickets from outfits such as Ticketmaster, LiveNation, and Songkick. But Spotify is now expanding that roster to include Eventbrite. 

Like other concert listings, Eventbrite events will be displayed in the Spotify user’s feed based on his musical preferences. To get started on buying a ticket to attend an event, the user simply taps the Find Tickets option, and he will then be directed to the concert web page where he can purchase tickets there and then. Eventbrite has made it clear that users will not need to log in or go through a captcha code when buying concert tickets.