San Francisco, Jul 29 (IANS): Despite a slow start to the quarter due to Covid-19, Swedish music streaming service Spotify on Wednesday said that its number of monthly active users grew 29 per cent year-over-year to 299 million in the second quarter of this year.

At the end of the quarter, Spotify had 138 million premium subscribers globally, a growth of 27 per cent year-over-year.

Spotify reported total revenue of 1,889 million euros in Q2, an increase of 13 per cent year-over-year.

Premium revenue grew 17 per cent year-over-year to 1,758 million euros.

But ad-supported revenue fell 21 per cent year-over-year as a result of Covid-19, the company said.

While ad-supported revenue of 131 million euros was down both year-over-year and sequentially, Spotify said it outperformed its forecast.

"Last quarter we noted a marked deceleration in sales brought on by the global health crisis where the last three weeks in March were down more than 20 per cent relative to our forecast. Performance continued to lag our expectations through April and May, but we significantly outperformed expectations in the month of June," the company said in a statement.

Ad Studio and Podcast channels of the company saw double digit growth and exceeded its expectations.

Spotify said that user growth in North America exceeded its expectations and India also outperformed its forecast this quarter thanks to strong performance from marketing campaigns in the region.

Latin America and Rest of World continue to see the fastest growth, with those regions growing 33 per cent and 58 per cent year-over-year, respectively, the company said.