Spotify Zooms to 422 Million Users in Q1, Growing Overall Listeners Amid Rogan Controversy and Loss of Russia Subscribers

variety.com:

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorSpotify topped guidance for total monthly listeners in the first quarter of 2022, despite the loss of 1.5 million paid subscribers in Russia and a roiling controversy over Joe Rogan’s podcast that had elicited calls for a boycott.The audio streamer’s monthly average user base grew 19% in Q1, to 422 million, representing a net gain of 16 million in the period.

Spotify exceeded expectations on MAU growth even excluding a “one-time benefit” of 3 million users who had created new accounts to access the service after an outage in early March.Spotify netted 2 million Premium subscribers, to reach 182 million (up 15% year over year).

That included approximately 1.5 million disconnects from the company’s ceasing Russian operations. Excluding the “involuntary churn” of Russian subs, growth was above expectations and subscriber gains outperformed in Latin America and Europe, according to the company. “Our business exhibited strength and resiliency in Q1,” Spotify said in announcing the results. “Nearly all of our key metrics surpassed guidance, led by MAU outperformance, healthy revenue growth, and better gross margin.”Click here to sign up for Variety’s free Strictly Business newsletter covering earnings, financial and investment news, and more.Shares of Spotify climbed 5% in pre-market trading Wednesday on the results.

The stock is down 55% year-to-date.During March’s service outage, which caused users to be “involuntarily logged out of Spotify,” the company estimates certain affected users created new accounts to log back in, resulting in approximately 3 million additional MAUs in the quarter.