The Sweden-based company has been growing its user base steadily for years, but its quarterly gross profit came at the expense of missing its forecast for monthly active users. The company has a mission plan to reach 1 billion users by 2030.

In announcing its Q1, the company announced that its mission would start again in earnest, with money being spent to win over new audiences.

“We are going to add back some marketing spend over the year,” said Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek. “Because we want to keep on having the growth and we saw that in some territories, we may have pulled back a little bit too much.”

The majority of Spotify’s profits were driven by its podcast business, fueled by an exclusive deal with Joe Rogan. Gross margins rose to 27.6 per cent in the quarter, up from 25.2 per cent a year earlier. The company’s quarterly revenue rose 20 per cent to €3.64 billion.

Spotify has raised prices to boost revenue and opened up different subscription plans. The service currently has 615 million users, aslightly down on its own forecast of 618 million for the quarter. It aims to have 631 million by mid-2024.