Spotify Clocks 320 Mn Monthly Active Users In Q3 Driven By India Growth

Swedish music streaming giant Spotify has registered a 29% year-on-year (YoY) growth in its global monthly active users (MAUs) reaching 320 Mn in Q3 2020, the company announced today. It has over 144 Mn subscribers for Spotify Premium services, which is 27% higher on a YoY basis. 

Spotify said the MAU growth was driven by success in the Indian market which outperformed expectations, thanks to some key marketing campaigns delivering the results. 

While Spotify did not announce India-specific numbers in terms of the number of premium subscribers, the company revealed that 22% of its MAU base in India engages with podcast content. Overall more than 1.9 Mn podcast titles are available globally, the company said in a release.

Anchor, the Spotify vertical which manages the podcast creator base, has added more than 25,000 podcasts from India this year. India is currently the fastest-growing market for Anchor, with 40% month-on-month growth this year, the company said in another press release. To mark the growth in the podcasts category, Spotify will host the inaugural edition of Spotify Podcasters’ Day on October 30, showcasing the top podcast talent from the county. 

Spotify India head Amarjit Singh Batra added that between January and June, Spotify India saw 5x growth in the number of creators who used the Anchor podcasting services.

Spotify, which was launched in 2008, made its entry into the Indian market in February 2019. Within a week of its launch, the global audio streaming giant managed to hit 1 Mn users in India. Gaana, Saavn, YouTube Music are some of its competitors.

YouTube Music, which was already riding on the success of the video streaming platform entered India in March 2019. Within a week of its launch, Youtube Music had registered over 3 Mn downloads, leaving Spotify’s achievement a little short of excitement.

Meanwhile, Gaana had recently achieved 185 Mn active users and it saw a 40% growth in the consumption of regional music and around 35% in the Bollywood music section. Gaana also revealed that it controls 30% of the market share in India. 

According to a report, Indians, on average, spend 20 hours every week listening to music whereas another report predicts that the Indian music streaming market will reach $227 Mn by 2023.