Today’s Q2 2018 earnings call was, as CEO Daniel Ek promised they would be, filled with information both for investors and the rest of us. Here are 9 big takeaways:
- Users are continuing to flock to the streamer – Spotify ended June with 180 million monthly active users, including 83 million paid subscribers. That’s up 30.4% and 40.7% respectively over the same quarter 2017.
- Losses continue despite revenue growth – Spotify generated revenues of $1.5B USD in Q2, up 26.4% year-on-year. But the net loss was$461.4M compared to a net loss of $220M for the same quarter last year.
- Spotify For Artists is a hit – 200,000 artists now use the marketing and analytics platform monthly. CEO Daniel Ek also repeated his promise to build an ecosystem that enables “1 million creators to make a living off the platform.”
- Spotify’s Family and Student plans are driving growth alongside bundles with Hulu and others.
- What churn rate? Ek debunked a report of 16% churn rates with a claim of 4% and falling in the US.
- Don’t expect price increases any time soon, despite a current experiment in Scandinavia.
- Revenue growth will come from nore paid subscribers and advertising, not from paying less to creators and labels.
- No Exclusives – expect in podcasts.
- No Push Into Video – “We’re an audio first platform,” reminded EK.