Spotify says about 2M users suppressing ads without paying

March 23 (Reuters) - Music streaming service Spotify Technology SA said on Friday about 2 million of its non-paying users were suppressing advertisements, highlighting a potential revenue risk for the soon-to-be public company.

Spotify had 157 million active users as of Dec. 31, of which about 71 million were paid subscribers who access ad-free versions of the service.

LinkedIn's top 50 places to work 2018:

In a regulatory filing, Spotify said it previously included the 2 million users in calculations for some of its key performance indicators, including MAUs, ad-supported users, content hours, and content hours per MAU.

The streaming music leader had filed this week for a direct listing of its shares worth up to $445 million, instead of a traditional IPO.

The direct listing will let investors and employees sell shares without the company raising new capital or hiring a Wall Street bank or broker to underwrite the offering. (Reporting by Arjun Panchadar in Bengaluru Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)