Spotify says around 2m users are avoiding ads without paying for Premium

Spotify has revealed that around 2m of its non-paying users are suppressing advertisements on the platform, a potential risk to revenues for the soon-to-be public company. Spotify currently boasts around 157m active users, just over half of which access the platform through the free, ad-supported version.

The figures were revealed in a regulatory filing that the company submitted ahead of its upcoming direct listing. Rather than a traditional IPO, the firm has elected to undergo this alternative method of becoming a publically-traded company.

The direct listing will let investors and employees sell shares without the firm raising new capital, and without having to hire a Wall Street bank or broker to underwrite the offering.

Around 86m users currently access Spotify via the ad-supported version of the platform, meaning that those suppressing or otherwise avoiding ads represent around 2.3 per cent of the potential audience.

The regulatory filings also revealed that Spotify has previously included these 2m users in calculations for some of its key performance indicators, including monthly active users (MAUs), ad-supported users, content hours and content hours per MAU.