Published Tue, Feb 10, 2026 · 09:30 PM
SPOTIFY, the Swedish music streaming giant, signed up significantly more users than analysts expected, setting a corporate record for most customers added in a single quarter.
It credited the year-end Wrapped campaign, which lets users share the artists and songs they most listened to throughout the year on social media.
The company also cited the launch of an enhanced free tier around the world as contributing to the growth.
The world’s biggest streaming service added 38 million users from October to December, reaching 751 million, a statement on Tuesday (Feb 10) said.
That beat the average analyst forecast for 745.2 million.
Operating income was 701 million euros (S$1.1 billion), higher than estimates of 639.1 million euros.
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Gross margin, typically an important indicator for Spotify investors, increased to 33.1 per cent, also a record.
Revenue from advertisements, a part of the business that has struggled to grow, shrunk year on year and was down by 4 per cent.
The company also issued first-quarter guidance for 759 million total monthly active users, a number that exceeded analysts’ forecasts.
Spotify projected that revenue will be unchanged at 4.5 billion euros, due to foreign exchange-rate movements.
The latest results were delivered by Gustav Soderstrom and Alex Norstrom, the company’s new co-CEOs who took over at the beginning of the year.
Over the past two decades, Spotify has expanded from music streaming – incorporating podcasts, audiobooks, video and now physical books – as it seeks to become a broad-based entertainment hub.
“It’s incredible to think that we now serve over three quarters of a billion people around the world,” said Norstrom.
“We were founded to solve what felt like the impossible, and ambition has been the driving force behind our success from our earliest days. And ambition will be a guiding principle of our next chapter.”
In recent months, the company has introduced features that aim to give users more control over the platform, including editorial tools for people who want to curate their listening experience.
One new tool, called prompted playlist, uses artificial intelligence to turn text prompts describing the type of music an individual wants to hear into a playlist, pulling from online context and the person’s historical preferences.
Spotify also introduced music videos to the platform in the US. Last week, it was among the few platforms to debut the latest one from Taylor Swift.
The company paid more than US$11 billion to music rights holders in 2025, an increase of more than 10 per cent from 2024.
In January, the company also announced price increases for users in the US, bringing the cost of a single subscription up by a US dollar to US$13 a month.
Investors have encouraged Spotify to continue increasing prices in markets where growth has slowed. But after a series of price hikes by several popular streaming platforms in recent years, some analysts are concerned there will not be room for more.
Spotify shares are down by 28 per cent so far this year, compared with a 1.7 per cent gain in the S&P Index. BLOOMBERG
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