Spotify shares rose 6% after the streaming company held its first investor day since 2022 to outline 2030 targets. Under new co-CEOs Gustav Söderström and Alex Norström—who took over after founder Daniel Ek stepped down in early 2026—Spotify announced it expects revenue to increase at a mid-teens compound annual rate and gross margin to reach 35% to 40% by 2030. The company also pointed to a long-term goal of 1 billion subscribers and US$100 billion in revenue, though its stock remains down approximately 25% since the start of 2026. The update reflects Spotify's strategic shift toward higher-value customers and AI-driven personalization amid rapid changes in music creation and distribution.
2030 Revenue and Margin Targets
Spotify outlined specific financial targets for 2030 during the investor day. The company expects revenue to grow at a mid-teens compound annual rate, with gross margin reaching 35% to 40%. These targets represent the company's commitment to profitability alongside subscriber growth. Long-term goals include reaching 1 billion subscribers and achieving US$100 billion in revenue.
Focus on High-Value Subscribers
Spotify is shifting its strategy to prioritize listeners who use the service most frequently and are willing to pay for additional services. The company launched Audiobooks+, which lets frequent listeners purchase extra audiobook hours beyond their subscription. According to Spotify, Audiobooks+ already has more than 1 million paying users beyond their standard subscriptions.
These high-engagement customers bring in several times the lifetime value of Premium-only users because they spend more and stay longer, Spotify said. The same approach is being extended to creators through planned paid memberships and other earning tools.
AI Strategy and Content Moderation
Spotify is leveraging artificial intelligence to maintain its competitive edge while managing platform quality. Rather than building its own general-purpose large language model (LLM), Spotify plans to purchase that technology on the open market. The company's differentiation comes from combining external AI intelligence with its proprietary Large Taste Model—an in-house system for reading listener preferences—along with its own taste data and context.
Users generate 3.4 trillion events and taste signals each day on Spotify's platform, providing the data foundation for personalization. To address AI-driven content proliferation, Spotify removed more than 75 million spammy tracks from the platform over the past 12 months. This strategy pairs advanced personalization with platform cleanup as AI-generated content becomes more prevalent.
