Spotify is aiming for 1 billion users and 20% operating margins by 2030. Here’s how it plans to get there
I attended Spotify Technology’s first Investor Day since 2022 on May 21. The Stockholm-based streaming giant, which turns 20 this year, transformed Highline Stages in New York City into a physical extension of the app, including a set modeled after Good Hang with Amy Poehler, the podcast that won the inaugural Golden Globe for Best Podcast earlier this year. Spotify sees itself as a multi-product platform with a long runway to better monetize its audience. Since the last Investor Day, Spotify has delivered roughly 18% revenue CAGR, expanded gross margins by more than five percentage points, and generated roughly $3.5 billion of free cash flow in 2025 alone. As of Q1 2026, Spotify reached 761 million monthly active users worldwide, with 293 million on paid subscriptions. The stock rose roughly 15% intraday on May 21 following Investor Day. Bank of America reiterated its buy rating.Led by Co-CEOs Gustav Söderström and Alex Norström, management now frames the future through a long-term “algorithm”: mid-teens constant-currency revenue growth, 35%–40% gross margins, and operating margins above 20% by 2030. By the end of the decade, Spotify is also targeting 1 billion active users and about $100 billion in annual revenue. I sat down with Christian Luiga, CFO since 2024, after the presentations. “We’re creating long-term value creation and expansion at the same time, and that is what we believe in,” he told me. Reaching the upper end of the 35%–40% gross margin range depends less on a single breakthrough than on improving the existing model, he said. Revenue growth, improved marketplace economics, a stronger ads business, and high-margin add-ons should all lift profitability over time, he explained. The key variable is how aggressively Spotify reinvests for growth versus allowing more to fall to the bottom line. That trade-off sits alongside a commitment to operating margins above 20%, which Luiga described as the core driver of long-term cash flow. A focus on custom