Spotify Surpasses 195 Million Paid Subscribers And Meets Or Exceeds Monthly Active User Expectations.

Spotify reported 195 million paid customers in the third quarter of 2022, an increase from 188 million paid or premium subscribers in the previous quarter and an increase over forecasts.

According to the company, it now has 4.7 million podcasts. Spotify had 4.4 million podcasts on the platform at the end of June, up from 4.0 million at the end of March. This quarter’s new features featured the premiere of Meghan Markle’s podcast, Archetypes.

Total revenue was €3.04 billion, vs a prediction of €3.0 billion.

Still, the company’s margins (which came in below forecasts at 24.7 percent vs the company’s estimate of 25.2 percent) remain a focus. This was due, in part, to “slower than planned advertising growth given the adverse economic environment,” as well as the expected renewal of a big publishing contract outside of the United States and currency changes, according to the company. According to the corporation, advertising was severely damaged in Europe. However, advertising accounts for a modest portion of the company’s results.

While podcasting has grown in popularity and ad income, the $1 billion investment required to get there has hampered the company’s profitability. In June, the business stated that it expected podcast margins to turn positive after 2022 — this year represented the greatest negative impact on margins — and that the division would become profitable within one to two years.

On the earnings call on Tuesday, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek stated that the results are still consistent with that pledge, as well as the company’s belief that this is an investment year.

“Despite the macroenvironment, this is all coming out roughly as we predicted,” Ek added.

When asked if Spotify will consider boosting rates in the United States, as Apple Music and other competitors have done, Ek responded, “It is one of the things that we would like to do,” and that the firm will be discussing it with its label partners.

The corporation has also experimented with ticket sales. Spotify introduced a ticketing platform for select artists in August. Spotify’s chief finance officer, Paul Vogel, described it as a way to increase average revenue per user on the platform while also increasing listening hours for certain artists. The business would not provide any figures on that attempt on Tuesday.

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