Spotify has issued its Q4 2022 and full-year financial results.
The streaming giant added a further 25 million premium subscribers in the past 12 months, a year-on-year increase of 14% to 205 million.
Ten million of those premium users were added in Q4. The total increase for the year would have been 27m when factoring in withdrawal from Russia.
The growth exceeded Spotify’s guidance by a net addition of three million subscribers. The company said the increase was aided by promotions and family plans.
However, with prices static premium ARPU (average revenue per user) growth was just 3% year-on-year to €4.55 (and down 1% at constant currency).
Including its freemium model, Spotify now has 489 million monthly active users (MAUs), up 20% year-on-year. Ad-supported MAUs were up 25% to 295m.
MAU net additions reached a quarterly record high of 33 million in Q4, 10 million above Spotify’s guidance.
The 2023 Q1 outlook is for 500m total MAUs and 207m premium subscribers (the latter up two million).
Users engaging with the year-end Spotify Wrapped campaign grew 30% year-on-year across 111 markets.
Spotify recently announced that it plans to cut its workforce by around 6%, a move in line with other tech firms in response to economic uncertainty. During Q4, the streaming company’s operating expenses grew 44% year-on-year (36% at constant currency), driven primarily by higher personnel costs related to headcount growth.
Total revenue grew 18% year-on-year in Q4 to €3.17 billion. For the 12 months, revenue increased 21.3% to €11.73bn.
Spotify made an operating loss of €659m during the 12-month period.
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