Spotify shares fell 8% in after-hours trading Wednesday, after its first quarterly earnings report.The streamer posted a user base of 170 million, including 75 million paid subscribers. That’s up 4 million paid users in 3 months and met analysts expectations. But the streamer’s guidance for current quarter revenue fell slightly under estimates.
Slower revenue growth is especially important since Spotify continues to lose money. For some investors and analysts rapid user growth can trump weak revenue. But with Apple Music and other competitors charging hard, Spotify’s predicted growth of 4 to 8 million paid subscribers in the current three months is adequate, but not overly impressive.
READ FULL Q1 LETTER TO INVESTORS
Highlights for Q1
- Revenue: $1.37 billion up. Last year, Spotify reported revenue of $1.09 billion.
- Paid subscribers: 75 million
- Ad-supported monthly active users: 99 million
- By contrast, Apple Music recently reported 40 million total subscribers (all paid)
Guidance For Q2
- Revenue: $1.32 billion to $1.56 billion. Analysts has expected revenue guidance in the upper end of that range
- Subscribers: 79 to 83 million in Q2
- Paid subscriptions should rose to between 92 and 96 million by the end of 2108
Last week, Spotify announced an expanded free music tier with ad supported access to 15 playlists including Discover Weekly, Release Radar and Daily Mix, along with Spotify curated playlists individualized to each user. A new feature offers “assisted playlists” that suggest songs to add to personal playlists based on each user’s taste; and a “new Data Saver” setting could “save up to 75% of data usage” via predictive song caching.