Digital subscriptions are showing remarkable growth during the COVID-19 pandemic. Netflix made twice as many subscribers as it had initially projected in that quarter, and Disney Plus has 50 million subscribers mere months after releasing, of which 8 million are paying for Hotstar in India. But Spotify hasn't seen that kind of a dramatic single-quarter growth - the company had forecasted 126–131 million total paying subscribers for this quarter, and it has reached 130 million. One would think that as far as the Swedish music streamer is concerned, there wasn't even a pandemic. And that's exactly why the company is in an enviable position. The company has an advantage that is in tremendously short supply: predictability. Video streaming services like Netflix might have to suffer a slowdown later this year because many subscribers who would have signed up later are doing so right now; and some might drop out later as lockdowns and stay-at-home orders phase out. Netflix even acknowledged that risk in its earnings call. But music streaming is not bound by time and space in the same way that video is — you can listen to music anywhere as long as you are not talking to someone else. Video streaming services have only recently started making portability a priority, with Netflix and Prime Video introducing a download feature as recently as 2017. No reduced productivity: Since only a small share of Spotify's revenue comes from ad-supported users, the company has been able to absorb the shock of reduced ad…
