The streaming music and podcast company has seen a sharp rise in paid subscribers at a time when people can't go out and socialized.

Monthly.

Active users rose to 345 million in the fourth quarter, leading to better than expected sales numbers.

Premium subscribers, who account for most of that gain, jumped 24% during the last three months of 2020.

But Spotify expressed concern that it may not be able to keep on signing up new subscribers at that pace, forecasting sales and paid subscriber numbers for the current quarter that were below analyst projections.

Spotify is counting on new paying subscribers to help offset the cost of its big expansion into podcasts.

It has spent hundreds of billions of dollars to buy podcast companies and two snacks a big names including Michelle Obama and Prince Harry and Meghan.