Spotify now has 320 million monthly active users, the company said on September 29, thanks partly to good performance in India. "The [Monthly Active User] outperformance was buoyed by India, which benefited from successful marketing campaigns, as well as stronger than expected results from our July launches in Russia, CIS, and the Balkans, with Russia serving as the largest upside driver," the company said in a press release. CIS refers to the Commonwealth of Independent States, which consists of post-Soviet Eurasian countries like Tajikistan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Azerbaijan; Spotify launched in some of these countries this July. Premium users, meanwhile, stood at 144 million. MAUs and premium subscriptions grew by 29% and 27% respectively. Spotify said it has 185 million free users, but did not provide a country-wise breakdown. "Rest of World", the territory which includes Indian Spotify subscribers, accounts for 10% of premium revenue. "Our average monthly Premium churn rate for the quarter fell below 4% for the first time, marking an 89 bps improvement Y/Y and 49 bps sequentially, driven by churn improvement across all product offerings," Spotify said. "Monetizing" fan bases and sidelining ARPU Making money from live events: Unlike video streaming platforms, music services can "upsell" music with live performances. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said that to the end of "monetizing [...] fan bases", the company must do three things: "One is to grow their fan bases. The second is to engage further in their fan base. And then the third is monetizing those…
