New Delhi, Feb 3 (IANS): Swedish music streaming platform Spotify on Wednesday said it added 25 million monthly active users in the fourth quarter of 2020 aided by better than expected growth in India.

The streaming giant also benefited from faster growth in the US and Western Europe.

Total monthly active users grew 27 per cent year-over-year to reach 345 million in the quarter, Spotify said.

The streaming giant ended 2020 with 155 million paid subscribers, a growth of 24 per cent over the past year.

"Despite the global uncertainty of 2020, it was a remarkable year for Spotify. Following a strong Q2 and Q3, Q4 met or exceeded our guidance by nearly every metric," Spotify CEO and Founder, Daniel Ek, said in a statement.

The platform said that podcast usage has been a factor in the accelerated net additions.

It said that podcast consumption hours nearly doubled year-on-year and 25 per cent of its monthly active users now engage with podcasts, up from 22 per cent last quarter.

Of note this quarter was the launch of Spotify Premium Mini in India and Indonesia, which gives users daily and weekly access to a subset of their favourite Premium features for a lower price.

In Q4, Spotify also announced partnership deals with Grab (Southeast Asia), Flipkart (India), Tink (Germany), and Euronics (Europe).

Spotify said its total revenue of 2,168 million euros grew 17 per cent year-on-year in Q4.

While "Premium" revenue grew 15 per cent year-on-year to 1,887 million euros, ad-supported revenue was particularly strong, growing 29 per cent year-on-year.