Spotify declares a loss of $101 million on revenues of $2.1 billion. The company says it continues to prioritize growth over profits while operating expenses increased by 37% year over year. Spotify has 144 million premium paying accounts which are up 27 percent. The new premium growth is credited to the rollout of Spotify in Russia and surrounding territories. Spotify has seen success with a new promotion called Premium Duo which allows two premium accounts for couples which Spotify said performed better than they expected.
Spotify in their earnings report mentioned
“As a company, our goal is to continually innovate, testing new features and conducting numerous experiments each quarter as a way to increase connections between creators and listeners while enhancing customer engagement, retention, and LTV. This quarter, we enhanced our lyrics functionality with a long awaited feature, Lyrics Search. We also added mixed media formats, such as the launch of the Daily Sports playlist, which combines sports commentary and personalities alongside personalized music recommendations.
Additionally, we revamped our podcast charts experience, which is live in 26 markets and gives users the opportunity to see what podcasts are trending. We also have expanded the mixed media playlist Your Daily Drive to users in the UK and Ireland, bringing a personalized mix of news podcasts and music to users, updated daily. Furthermore, we announced that podcast listeners can connect even more deeply with hosts through video podcasts allowing for a more meaningful user experience.”
Going on say
“Q3 was a standout quarter for our podcasting efforts, beginning with the July launch of The Michelle Obama Podcast, an Original & Exclusive (“O&E”) podcast that became the #1 show globally on our platform in July and August, making it our top summer podcast. In September, The Joe Rogan Experience arrived on platform with video capability and became the #1 show in all of our English-speaking markets while outperforming our audience expectations. We look forward to the start of our exclusivity period for this podcast by the end of this year.”
Spotify announced that more O&E content launches its DC Comics partnership and their multiyear deals with Esports partners Riot Games’ League of Legends and Chernin Entertainment.
Spotify hopes by the end of Quarter 4 to have 340-345 million active users and 150-154 million Premium Subscribers which may be possible with the holiday season approaching.