Not a bad collection of news links to wrap up the week for the Spotify Newsletter. And as always - thank you for reading!

Spotify unveiled its 3rd quarter numbers this week: shares climbed 8.2% on Wednesday with details of an improvement in profitability. So there’s that. It’s good to be profitable. The Car Thing thing seems be generating a lot of excitement. So that’s something as we move along the Spotify road.

★In the SPOTlight★

⭐️ Spotify Hits 172M Paying Subs, Podcasts Help Boost Ad Revenue 75 Percent

It ended September with 172 million premium, or paid, subscribers, up from 165 million as of the end of the second quarter. The result was in line with the range of 170-174 million that the company had previously forecast it would reach.

⭐️ Spotify Car Thing's wait-list signups surpass 2 million people (and climbing)

And yes, you'll still probably have to wait a long time to get one.

⭐️ Humble Angel Records launches app for Spotify playlist alerts

Available for iPhone, it’s called Playlist Alert App, and is mainly aimed at artists, managers and labels. The app enables people to choose tracks and get notifications when they are added to Spotify-curated playlists, as well as tracking how they move up and down the running order of those playlists over time.

⭐️ Why Spotify is turning its attention to Africa

Africa, with its internationally recognised musical talent — and growing mobile phone use — is central to Swedish music streamer Spotify’s plans to extend its reach to a billion customers.

🗣Podcast Action🗣

Spotify launches original podcast Who Is Daniel Johns?

Spotify Finally Expanding Video Podcast Platform

Religion and relationships top podcast charts in Ghana on Spotify

🎧The Playlist List🎧

Kanye West’s Groundbreaking Album ‘Donda’ Reaches One Billion Streams On Spotify

Heavy Metal Science Songs: A Spotify Playlist for Halloween

🔥Even More Hot News Links🔥

Spotify has just sold two thirds of its stake in music distributor DistroKid

Spotify brings artist merchandising tool to Australia

Spotify's Sulinna Ong heads to LA as global head of editorial

Amazon, Spotify, Apple, others are reinventing live audio. Will you be ready?

Spotify Free Users Are Growing Faster Than Paid Subscribers – But Why?

Why Spotify Stock Surged Today

Spotify Debuts All-New Sleepy Hallow Mini-Documentary

🎵New Adventures in Spotify🎵

GauchoSteely Dan

Waiting On A Friend - Remastered 2009The Rolling Stones

This Train Will Be Taking No PassengersAugie March

All The Things She SaidSimple Minds

HAVE A NICE WEEKEND!!! 😀