Spotify: artists with the most monthly listeners worldwide 2025

As of July 2025, the artist with the most monthly listeners on Spotify worldwide was The Weeknd, with more than 111 million monthly listeners. Right behind stood Bruno Mars with a listenership of nearly 111 million, followed by Ed Sheeran, Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga, who all reached a monthly listenership of around 99 million worldwide.

Spotify streams as an indicator of the popularity of artists

The number of streams listened to on Spotify is an important indicator of the success of an artist and the popularity of specific songs, since Spotify is one of the most popular streaming platforms worldwide. Over the last years, the Swedish audio streaming and media giant has been steadily growing, reaching a revenue of 7.88 billion euros in 2020. The majority of this revenue was generated through premium subscription rather than advertisement on the platform. The number of global employees of Spotify has been rising alongside the company’s growth, with most of them working in the United States. However, while Spotify is currently the most popular global music steaming provider, there are other important market players in the business, most importantly Apple Music.

The music streaming market is booming

The trending popularity of these services is directly related to significant developments that are changing the music industry. Changes such as the move from physical music sales towards a more digital form of music consumption benefits streaming services as they gain more subscribers. This overall trend that has emerged over the last two decades has accelerated due to coronavirus pandemic of 2020 during which people started to increase their audio consumption, generating a higher demand for audio entertainment.