Spotify gains many new users, but makes a loss
The music streaming market leader Spotify gained more users than expected in the past quarter - but is still deep in the red. The bottom line was a quarterly loss of 225 million euros, compared to a profit of 131 million euros a year earlier.
Meanwhile, revenue rose 14.3 percent to 3.04 billion euros, Spotify announced Tuesday. Among other things, the higher number of employees after the job expansion last year - as well as severance payments after the layoffs initiated in January - had been responsible for higher costs.
The Swedish company ended the quarter with 515 million users, of which 210 million are paying subscribers. Both figures were significantly better than Spotify's own forecasts.
For the current quarter, Spotify is now targeting 530 million total users and 217 million paying customers. Spotify added an Instagram- and Tiktok-style feed to its app in March, allowing users to discover new music and podcasts. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek invested hundreds of millions of euros in expanding the podcast business with advertising revenue. (SDA)
