Spotify to Hire Hundreds of Staff to Boost ad Sales Worldwide

Music streaming service Spotify is planning to hire hundreds of staff to boost its advertising sales in Europe and anywhere in the world, as the company is looking forward to increase revenue from customers who don't pay a monthly fee but make up the bulk of its user base.

Lee Brown, Spotify's head of advertising business, said in an interview that "We are increasing our ads business marketing workforce by over 70% in Europe, Australia and Canada ... and that's off a pretty sizable base."

"We're investing in our advertising business. As far as long-term strategy, I think gone are the days of advertising being less than 10% of our overall revenue."

The company, which earns income from paid subscriptions and by distributing ads to non-paying users, saw that their advertising business return to increase this year after being hit by the pandemic.

Right now, Spotify has 365 million monthly active users, 210 million are ad-supported or non-paying users, bringing in about 12% of its total revenue.

Morningstar analysts said that "An ad not only creates revenue for the firm, but it also lowers costs, as it leads to fewer songs being played and, in turn, modestly lower royalties to be paid."

According to research firm eMarketer, the Swedish company is expected to overtake Apple in podcast listeners for the first time this year.