In 2014, the music industry reached a low point when global recorded music revenues hit $13 billion. Spotify’s annual contribution at the time was around $1 billion, with around 15 million paying subscribers.

In 2024, Spotify alone paid out a record $10 billion to the music industry—totaling nearly $60 billion since our founding.

For a lot of people, those numbers might go in one ear and out the other. And they’d perhaps ask why Spotify keeps shouting about it.

It’s because the system we’ve built together is working, and where we are now is only the beginning. Today, there are more than 500 million paying listeners across all music streaming services. A world with 1 billion paying listeners is a realistic goal we should collectively set.