Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Spotify’s continued investment in podcasts appears to be paying off, after the company reported that podcast listening has increased by 200 percent year-on-year in its fourth quarter earnings today. The company says it now has over 700,000 podcasts on its platform, and that over 16 percent of its users now listen to podcasts. Spotify says the amount of users paying for its premium tier increased to 124 million.
Despite the increase in podcast listening, Spotify couldn’t help but slide back into the red, making a €209 million (around $230 million) operating loss which sat in stark contrast to its third-ever quarterly profit from Q3 last year. The company says it expects these losses to continue for the rest of 2020, which it’s calling an…