With an increasing focus on podcasts and exploring even more options outside of music, Spotify’s third quarter in a potentially difficult year shows no signs of slowing for the streaming service.

At the start of the year, the outcome of 2020 for Spotify and other streamers was in question as we began to see the effects of the Coronavirus around the world on industries and people.

Spotify’s third quarter review shows that their growth is not slowing down, in fact it’s increasing. A monumental last year has seen Spotify’s growth meet “or beat expectations in all our regions”.

Their overall active monthly users around the world now stands at 320 million, a whopping 29% growth on Q3 last year. This figure means that they have managed to double their overall monthly active users in the last 3 years, which stood at 150 million after Q3 2017.

Whilst the number of paying subscribers has increased in growth, it’s not quite keeping pace with the growth in overall users. 144 million people now pay for Spotify use, 27% more than the same time last year.

Spotify have been edging towards equalising the number of free users with the number of paying subscribers for years now. Whilst that gap seems to not be closing as significantly as before, Spotify and their investors are no doubt still thrilled at the growth.

The past year of considerable growth has been bolstered by their launch in some significant new markets including their long-awaited entry into Russia. More considerably though, Spotify have been looking beyond music to grow their platform.

Spotify have made a big focus on growing the presence of podcasts on their platform to huge success. Their Q3 report states that they now offer 1.9 million podcasts, 400,000 more than they had at the end of Q2 this year. 22% of their monthly active users are now engaging with podcasts.

Spotify have begun introducing video podcasts and seem to also be exploring the potential for exclusive audiobook content. They claim it is their goal to become “the world’s number one audio platform through compelling new music releases and exclusive non-music content”.

They’re certainly doing a good job of that so far. Check out the infographic below for more details on Spotify’s Q3 report and you can view a full earnings report here.