Subscriber Growth And Profit
Spotify said it increased the number of people using its platform for music, podcasts, and audiobooks, even as competition in streaming remains intense. The company reported that paid subscribers rose by 9 million in the final three months of 2025, bringing the total to 290 million. The Swedish firm said the increase helped lift net profit to €1.17 billion, according to financial results released on Tuesday.
Spotify said it now has more than 750 million users in total, including paying and non-paying accounts. The company also reported total revenue of $4.5 billion for the final quarter of 2025. Shares in the company rose by about 15% following the results.
Payments To Artists And Ongoing Debate
Spotify said it paid almost $11 billion to artists, but criticism continues over how much musicians and songwriters receive in royalties. The debate has included public boycotts and past disputes, including Taylor Swift’s decision to keep her music off the platform for three years over payment terms. In September 2025, the band Massive Attack said it would stop using the service, calling Spotify an economic burden on artists and criticizing how fan spending is used.
Product Features And User Engagement
The company pointed to its year-end listening summary feature, Spotify Wrapped, as a driver of engagement. Spotify said its 11th annual Wrapped reached more than 300 million engaged users and generated more than 630 million shares on social media across 56 languages. The feature provides users with a curated summary of their listening habits each year.
Spotify also said its expansion in users was partly linked to audiobooks, while adding that it plans to keep building technology across music, podcasts, books, video, live formats, and other areas.
Strategy And Technology Focus
Chief executive Gustav Söderström said the company sees itself as a research and development arm of the music industry, with a focus on new formats such as adding video to podcasts and supporting music created with artificial intelligence. He said the company aims to understand new technologies quickly and apply them, and added that he expects the broader industry to be affected by the shift toward AI, with those who adopt it earlier seeing more benefit.
Market Context
The latest results arrive as the industry continues to debate how revenue is shared between platforms and creators. Spotify’s financial update shows higher subscriber numbers and profit alongside that discussion, while the company said it will continue to invest in technology to address challenges across different types of audio content.
Featured image credits: Wikimedia Commons
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