Spotify’s Q3 2023 financial report reflects positive outcomes for the prominent music-streaming and podcast platform. The total revenue surged to €3.4 billion, with ad-supported revenue experiencing a 16% year-on-year increase, reaching €447 million.

This quarter marked Spotify’s return to profitability after more than a year, albeit with a modest 1% growth. This achievement follows the much-anticipated price adjustment and a revival in the advertising market. The platform welcomed 23 million new listeners in Q3, elevating the total monthly active users to 574 million. Ad-supported monthly active users experienced a notable 32% growth, reaching 361 million.

Spotify highlighted ongoing improvements in podcast trends, with double-digit growth in podcast advertising revenue. Additionally, the primary ad revenue driver, music advertising revenue, exhibited a robust resurgence, climbing nearly 20% year-on-year. This growth is attributed to increased impressions sold and stable pricing, according to Spotify.

According to its recent annual study, Culture Next 2023: Top Gen Z Trends, Spotify’s first-party data revealed that users worldwide spent an average of more than 2.4 hours daily on the platform during Q3. In the first half of 2023, Gen Z globally streamed over 1.5 billion minutes of music and AI-powered DJ recommendations.

Specifically in the UK, Gen Z individuals are utilizing Spotify podcasts for educational purposes, witnessing a 61% surge in the education category over the past year. In the first half of 2023 alone, UK Gen Zs generated 250 million podcast streams. Half of these users noted that podcasts bring them closer to cultural zeitgeist than any other media, and 76% of UK Gen Zs use podcasts as a learning tool for topics they wish they had learned about in school.

As younger consumers navigate various media forms and switch between channels and platforms, audio and connected TV, along with streaming and podcasts, continue to be the preferred audio investment formats among advertisers.

In a recent investor call, Spotify disclosed its foray into audiobooks and highlighted a strengthened partnership with Roku to enable video ads in the Spotify app on Roku connected TV devices.