Ariana Grande has once again rewritten music streaming history by breaking the all-time record for the most monthly listeners by a female artist on Spotify. The Grammy-winning singer reached a staggering 126.81 million monthly listeners, setting a new benchmark on the world’s leading audio streaming platform.
What makes the achievement even more remarkable is that Grande surpassed her own record, which she had previously set during the Christmas season last year, driven largely by the enduring popularity of her holiday hit Last Christmas. This year’s numbers underline her consistent global appeal across seasons, genres, and generations.
Known for her powerful vocals, chart-topping albums, and strong digital presence, Ariana Grande continues to dominate the global music landscape. Her extensive catalog—from pop anthems and R&B-infused tracks to festive classics—has ensured sustained listener engagement worldwide.
Industry analysts point out that the surge in monthly listeners reflects both the timeless popularity of her earlier hits and renewed interest in her music across streaming platforms. The record further cements Ariana Grande’s status as one of the most influential and commercially successful artists of the streaming era.
At the All That Matters conference held in Singapore, Shridhar Subramaniam, President of Sony Music Asia and Middle East and Chair of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), delivered an insightful discourse on Asia’s expanding role in the global music industry. Emphasizing the region’s vibrant cultural diversity and localized music scenes, he outlined how these elements are rapidly shaping the future of music on a worldwide scale.
Subramaniam pointed to the IFPI’s initiative of launching weekly charts across six Asian countries as a groundbreaking benchmark for measuring success in an extraordinarily diverse region. He likened Asia’s cultural and linguistic variety to a “stratified Grand Canyon,” where deeper exploration reveals new colors, sounds, and artistic expressions.
One striking example he shared was Indonesia’s traditional dangdut music, a folk-rooted genre that has been revitalized by urban youth into a modern hybrid called “hipdut.” This fusion of old rhythms and contemporary beats has dominated Indonesian charts throughout the year, prompting Sony Music to invest early with a dedicated label and acquisition strategy. The genre’s trajectory mirrors that of reggaeton, which successfully crossed into Afrobeats and Punjabi music, exemplifying how regional styles can achieve global resonance.
The Philippines, with its Pinoy pop scene, is another burgeoning hotspot. Acts like SB19, inspired partly by the K-pop model but firmly localized, have amassed billions of streams and expanded into new markets like Japan through live tours and collaborations. Subramaniam also noted Thailand’s rising prominence and cross-border collaborations involving Korean, Japanese, and Chinese producers, underscoring the dynamic exchange within Asian music.
Despite the fragmented and competitive nature of the industry, Subramaniam stressed the importance of initial domestic success as a springboard to global breakthroughs. Drawing parallels to K-pop’s rise, he acknowledged that fervent home fan bases have been crucial in propelling artists onto the world stage.
With Spotify alone uploading over 135,000 new songs daily, the challenge of artist development has intensified. However, evolving strategies such as fan economies, live touring, and media syncs offer a diverse toolkit to help artists find their unique paths to success.
Looking ahead, Subramaniam remains optimistic about Asia’s cultural and economic influence in music. From contributing less than 7% to nearly 15% of the global market in recent years, Asia is poised to reach 20%, with hyper-local scenes increasingly shaping global culture through sheer volume and algorithmic power. The dominance of Indian and Latin American acts on platforms like YouTube illustrates this trend, suggesting similar patterns will emerge across other streaming services.
Asia’s music moment is here, fueled by cultural richness, innovation, and an unyielding drive from artists and fans alike — a phenomenon that Sony Music and Shridhar Subramaniam are proudly championing on the world stage.
Lossless audio has been one of the most requested features from Spotify users—and now, it’s officially here. Spotify has started rolling out lossless sound to Premium subscribers across more than 50 markets, with listeners in countries like the US, UK, Japan, Germany, Sweden, and Australia already seeing the feature appear.
Bringing high-resolution sound to the platform, Spotify Lossless allows Premium users to stream music in up to 24-bit/44.1 kHz FLAC quality. Whether you’re diving into a brand-new album or rediscovering old favorites, lossless audio promises a richer, deeper, and more detailed listening experience. The files are larger, the audio sharper, and the music comes through as the artist intended.
“The wait is finally over; we’re so excited lossless sound is rolling out to Premium subscribers,” said Gustav Gyllenhammar, Spotify’s VP of Subscriptions. “We’ve taken time to build this feature in a way that prioritizes quality, ease of use, and clarity at every step, so you always know what’s happening under the hood.”
Spotify has ensured maximum control and flexibility with this new feature. Users can customize music quality settings individually for Wi-Fi, cellular, and downloads—choosing between Low, Normal, High, Very High, and now, Lossless. The app even provides helpful data usage indicators to guide those choices. Once enabled, a Lossless indicator will appear in the Now Playing bar or Connect Picker to confirm the mode is active.
To turn on lossless audio, users can go to Settings & Privacy > Media Quality in the Spotify app, and manually toggle the Lossless setting for each connection type. Notably, this setting must be enabled on each device individually.
Lossless playback is available on mobile, desktop, and tablet, as well as a growing range of Spotify Connect-enabled devices from brands like Sony, Samsung, Bose, and Sennheiser. Support for Sonos and Amazon devices is expected to arrive next month.
Due to current limitations with Bluetooth bandwidth, Spotify recommends using wired headphones or non-Bluetooth speakers for the best lossless experience. Streaming via Wi-Fi is also ideal, as lossless files are larger and may require a few moments to buffer when first played.
With the addition of Lossless, Spotify Premium continues to evolve. This new feature joins recent innovations like DJ, Jam, AI Playlist, daylist, and personalized Mixes curated by global editors—all designed to elevate the way listeners discover and enjoy music.
For Premium subscribers, this marks a significant leap forward in audio quality, proving that Spotify is not only listening to user feedback but delivering a world-class product experience that keeps pushing boundaries.
