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Spotify hits 300 million premium subscribers in Q2

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Spotify

Spotify reached 300 million premium subscribers in the second quarter, the company said on Tuesday, as revenue rose 14 per cent year on year to €4.78 billion, about $5.5 billion. Shares fell after the company reported higher costs tied to new AI features and forecast subscriber growth slightly below Wall Street expectations.

The Swedish audio streamer added seven million premium subscribers in the quarter, one million more than its own guidance, with increases across all its global regions, according to its second-quarter results published on 4 August.

Monthly active users grew 12 per cent year on year to 777 million, one million short of the company’s prior guidance. Spotify added 16 million users overall during the quarter.

Net income was €545 million, or €2.61 a share, against a loss of €86 million a year earlier. Revenue rose from €4.19 billion, and gross margin reached a record 33.4 per cent. Operating income was €655 million.

Spotify executives have said the company is moving into an era of AI generation, spanning recommendations and features such as “personal podcasts” built around users’ interests.

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The company is also developing an AI-powered tool that lets fans make remixes and cover songs within the app. On Tuesday it announced a licensing agreement covering the tool with Merlin, which represents independent music labels accounting for about 15 per cent of the global recorded music market.

The deal allows artists on Merlin member labels to opt in to the remixing tool, and Spotify said it would launch as a paid add-on, creating an additional revenue stream for participating artists. The company has similar agreements with Universal Music Group.

Charlie Hellman, Spotify’s global head of music, said the agreement “ensures participating artists are credited and compensated, and that every creation drives listeners back to the original work”.

Charlie Lexton, Merlin’s chief executive, said: “Giving our members’ artists the choice to make their music available as part of this exciting technology, while ensuring the opportunity to participate in an additional revenue stream, is exactly what Merlin is here to do.”

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Co-chief executive Gustav Söderström, who took joint charge of Spotify alongside Alex Norström in January when founder Daniel Ek moved to an executive chairman role, told Wall Street analysts there is scepticism about fully AI-generated music, but “our products are about real artists, not fake artists”.

He said the new product would first be offered to fans of certain artists to begin making remixes, in order to strengthen the model.

For the current quarter, Spotify forecast it would add about 11 million monthly active users to end the period at 788 million, below Wall Street estimates of roughly 793 million. It said premium subscribers would rise by about five million to 305 million.

The company forecast revenue of €5 billion for the current quarter and a gross margin of 32.9 per cent.

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Jamie Young

Jamie Young

Jamie Young is Senior Reporter at Business Matters, covering SME finance, employment law and Westminster policy since 2016. He has reported on every Budget and Autumn Statement since 2018, helped make sense of the ‘covid era’ and the bounce-back loan scheme from launch through the fraud investigations, and broke the magazine’s coverage of the 2024 late-payment reforms. He joined Business Matters straight from completing his BA in Administration from Exeter University and is NCTJ-qualified. Reach him at jyoung@cbmeg.co.uk

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