Stockholm — Spotify Technology SA surpasses Wall Street’s estimate of second-quarter revenue on Wednesday as music streaming companies report a 20% increase in paying subscribers for demand-driven premium services in Europe and North America I did.
While Europe and North America accounted for more than half of the monthly active users (MAUs), the pandemics that raged in several Asian countries, including India and Indonesia, were sacrificed.
According to Refinitiv’s IBES data, the quarterly MAU was 365 million, which was below the company’s forecast, along with analysts’ forecast of 371.5 million.
Spotify was launched in 85 countries earlier this year, bringing its footsteps to 180 countries and exposing it to the influence of COVID-19 around the world.
“Some markets are now almost back to normal … some of them are still hit hard by COVID,” CEO Daniel Ek said in an interview.
The company’s advertising business, which was hit by last year’s pandemic, grew 110% and bounced back to € 275 million ($ 324.64 million).
The company’s earnings and premium subscriber forecast caps for the quarter also exceeded expectations.
Spotify forecasts revenues of € 23.1-25.1 billion and premium subscribers of 170-174 million. Analysts expected an average of € 2.39 billion in revenue and 170.4 million subscribers.
Spotify has also invested heavily in a podcast business comparable to Apple, launching a paid subscription platform for podcasters in the United States in April.
With 2.9 million podcasts on its platform, podcasts’ share of total time spent reached a record high in the quarter.
Personality podcasts continue to attract more users. Revenues for the quarter increased from € 2.15 billion in the year-ago quarter to € 2.33 billion, exceeding analysts’ expectations of € 2.29 billion. Premium subscribers, which make up the majority of the company’s revenue, reached 165 million, in line with analysts’ expectations.
The total number of monthly active users increased by 22% to 365 million.