Spotify Verifications Lead to Uptick in Individual Subscription Growth, CIRP Reports

More than a third of Spotify users pay for Premium subscriptions, up slightly at the end of September from the June quarter when the streaming music service reportedly began verifying Family Plan members lived in the same household, Consumer Intelligence Research Partners reported Thursday. That tactic has started to move paid subscribers to individual membership plans, CIRP said. Among U.S. Spotify listeners in Q3, 13 percent of ad-supported users trialed a Premium subscription vs. 11 percent in Q2, and 71 percent of trial Premium subscribers converted to a paid Premium sub, down from 74 percent in the June quarter, CIRP said. Some 14 percent of Premium subscribers ended a paid subscription in June and either reverted to a free, ad-supported account or stopped using Spotify, said the researcher. The service added about the same number of new Premium subscribers, who either began with a trial or bought a Premium subscription without a trial, as it lost in lapsed or canceled Premium subscriptions, it said. CIRP surveyed 500 U.S. users July-September.