Streaming music leader Spotify is saying that approximately 2 million users who are not paying for the premium tier of service are suppressing advertisements. A re-filed prospectus for the company’s direct public stock listing states “On March 21, 2018, we detected instances of approximately two million users as of December 31, 2017, who have been suppressing advertisements without payment.”
There have already been claims that some “premium” users were able to circumvent payment through a modified smart phone app.
According to Music Ally:
The company had been counting those users for some of its key metrics, including monthly active users; ad-supported users; content hours; and content hours per monthly active user. Now they’ve been stripped out and the metrics restated.
The original filing claimed Spotify had 92 million ad-supported users, but updated it to be listed as only 90 million users. It’s a small change in the grand scheme of things, but an important move for a company looking to go public and attract investors.
