SYDNEY — Australia’s benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index climbed to a fresh record high Thursday, trading at 9,255.2 points, up 27.4 points or 0.30%, as of 2:37 p.m. AEST, marking the index’s second consecutive all-time high after a strong session Wednesday that surprised many market watchers who had grown accustomed to Australian shares lagging their global peers.

Thursday’s gain built directly on Wednesday’s session, when the ASX 200 added 0.9% to close at a lifetime peak of 9,227.80 points, extending the index’s gains since the start of August to 2.8%. New Zealand’s benchmark index also finished at a record Wednesday, climbing 0.7% to 13,997.18 points, as strength spread across both markets.

A Surprising Turnaround for a Perceived Laggard

The rally marks a notable shift in narrative for the Australian sharemarket, which had spent much of the past 12 months trailing international peers, largely attributed to its limited direct exposure to artificial intelligence-related technology stocks. That relative underweight to AI, long viewed as a drag on the index’s performance during the sector’s rapid ascent, has instead become an unlikely source of strength in recent sessions.

UBS strategist Richard Schellbach has pointed to Australia’s limited pure AI technology exposure as a factor that has repeatedly benefited the ASX during periods of global AI sector disruption, drawing interest from Asian investors at moments when AI chip stocks elsewhere have struggled. As cracks appeared in parts of the global AI trade in recent weeks, institutional funds rotated capital toward Australia, drawn by the market’s comparatively lower concentration risk in the sector. Commentators tracking the move have likened the index’s unexpected outperformance to Australian short-track speed skater Steven Bradbury, who famously won an Olympic gold medal in 2002 after every other skater in his race crashed, with some in the market now referring to the ASX as the “Steven Bradbury of financial markets.”

Sector Performance Diverges Sharply

Beneath Wednesday’s headline gain, performance varied considerably across sectors. Materials led the market with a 3.56% surge, while Information Technology added 2.51% and Industrials contributed a further 1.01% gain. By contrast, the Energy sector tumbled 2.22% and Financials slipped 0.44%, a divergence analysts attributed to shifting expectations around the trajectory of commodity prices and interest rates. The broader All Ordinaries Index climbed 1% to 9,405.40 on Wednesday, though it remained just below the 9,436.20 level it reached in an earlier March high.

By Thursday afternoon, that sector rotation appeared to be continuing, with Materials up 1.1% and Financials up a more modest 0.3%, both having pulled back from earlier session highs of 2.2% and 0.6%, respectively. Even so, both sectors have posted substantial gains over recent weeks, with Materials up 7.5% over the past five trading sessions and Financials up roughly 10% since the start of July.

Gold and Base Metals Lead Individual Movers

Wednesday’s standout individual performers clustered heavily around gold and base metals producers. Capricorn Metals surged 8.74% to $14.19, Genesis Minerals jumped 8.24% to $6.44, and Bellevue Gold climbed 8.08% to $1.405. Several other miners, including Predictive Discovery, Ora Banda Mining and Vault Minerals, all posted gains exceeding 7.5% during the session, reflecting broad strength across the domestic gold sector even as bullion prices themselves moved only modestly.

A Rally Fueled by Global Tailwinds

The rally in Sydney has closely tracked developments overseas. Equities in Australia and New Zealand closed at record highs Wednesday alongside a broader rally in U.S. and European shares, driven in part by strong AI-related corporate earnings and growing optimism over easing tensions in the Middle East tied to the Strait of Hormuz. That risk appetite carried into Thursday’s session, with improving global technology sentiment combining with continued strength across mining and financial sectors to push the ASX 200 to its second straight record.

A fourth consecutive session of gains through Wednesday pushed the benchmark’s relative strength index into overbought territory, reaching its highest level since mid-June 2025, a technical signal some analysts have pointed to as evidence the rally may be due for at least a temporary pause even as the broader trend has remained firmly positive.

New Listings Add to Market Activity

Thursday’s session also featured corporate developments beyond the index’s daily movements. Commodities giant Glencore has confirmed plans to pursue a secondary listing on the ASX, targeting Australia’s roughly $4.4 trillion pension pool, which is projected to nearly triple to $12.4 trillion by 2045. The listing, to be structured through CHESS Depositary Interests, would proceed without any capital raising or share transfer. Glencore chief executive Gary Nagle has said he expects the company to qualify for ASX 200 inclusion within about 12 months, requiring roughly $1.5 billion of local market capitalization, before eventually qualifying for the ASX 100 as well.

Reporting Season in Full Swing

Thursday’s trading also coincided with the height of Australia’s corporate reporting season, with more than 250 ASX-listed companies expected to report earnings or dividend updates over the coming weeks. That steady stream of company-specific news has added to the volatility underlying individual stock movements even as the broader index has continued grinding to new highs, with investors weighing individual earnings results against the more supportive macro backdrop driving the market’s overall direction.

With the ASX 200 now on track for its second consecutive record close, market watchers are likely to continue closely tracking whether Australia’s relative shelter from the recent AI sector volatility persists, or whether renewed strength in U.S. technology shares eventually reasserts the index’s more familiar pattern of trailing global peers. For now, the combination of strong mining and financial sector performance, continued reporting season activity, and improving global risk sentiment has positioned the Australian sharemarket for a rare stretch atop the list of the world’s best-performing major indexes.

shares plunged Wednesday, closing down 30.48% at $33.90, after the solar equipment maker’s disappointing third-quarter revenue outlook overshadowed a second-quarter report that beat Wall Street’s earnings expectations, dragging shares of several other solar companies lower in sympathy.

The stock, which had gained roughly 27% for the year heading into the report, gave back a substantial portion of those gains in a single trading session, marking one of the sharpest single-day declines the company has experienced in recent memory. Shares showed a partial rebound overnight, rising 2.04% to $34.59 as of 12:39 a.m. Eastern time Thursday, though the stock remained well below its pre-earnings level.

A Mixed Quarter With a Bright Spot

SolarEdge reported second-quarter revenue of $346.2 million, up 19.6% from a year earlier and narrowly ahead of Wall Street’s consensus estimate. Gross margin improved sharply to 27.5%, up from just 11.1% in the same quarter a year earlier, reflecting continued progress in the company’s efforts to rebuild profitability after a prolonged industry downturn.

On an adjusted, non-GAAP basis, SolarEdge posted earnings of 5 cents per share, a swing from a loss of 81 cents per share in the same period last year and a result that comfortably cleared analyst expectations. Under standard GAAP accounting, however, the company still reported a net loss of $30.8 million, or 50 cents per share, an improvement from a loss of 95 cents per share in the first quarter of 2026 and a substantial improvement from the $124.7 million, or $2.13 per share, loss recorded in the second quarter of last year.

Guidance Undercuts the Recovery Narrative

Despite the improved margins and narrower losses, investors focused overwhelmingly on SolarEdge’s forecast for the current quarter, which fell well short of expectations. The company guided to third-quarter revenue of $310 million to $340 million, a range that sits below the second quarter’s own revenue total and well under Wall Street’s expectations of more than $370 million.

That guidance suggested to many analysts that SolarEdge’s fragile recovery may remain uneven, undercutting the more encouraging signals from the quarter’s underlying earnings performance. Immediately following the results, shares initially traded down between 8.3% and 22.3% in various sessions of trading before ultimately settling at the steeper 30.48% decline by Wednesday’s close, reflecting a market that grew increasingly skeptical as the day progressed.

Regional Demand Diverges Sharply

SolarEdge Chief Executive Shuki Nir attributed much of the company’s ongoing challenges to a stark divergence in regional demand. Nir said the company continues to make progress as solar demand remains strong in Europe and is improving across the commercial and industrial segments of the U.S. market. That strength, however, has not been enough to offset persistent weakness in the U.S. residential solar sector, which has continued to struggle amid higher interest rates and shifting state-level incentive policies that have curbed household demand for rooftop solar installations.

A Volatile Pattern Heading Into Earnings

Wednesday’s selloff extended a pattern of volatility that has defined SolarEdge’s stock over the past several quarters. The company’s first-quarter results, released in May, saw revenue rise 46% year over year to $310 million, beating estimates, but adjusted earnings per share of negative 43 cents missed forecasts by more than 50%, sending shares down more than 7% in premarket trading at the time. A $14 million charge tied to doubtful debt contributed to a widening net loss in that period, illustrating the kind of one-off financial pressures that have periodically complicated the company’s underlying operational recovery.

Ahead of Wednesday’s report, Wall Street had entered with cautious optimism, projecting earnings of roughly negative 2 cents per share on revenue of about $341 million, positioning the actual results as a mixed but directionally positive surprise on the bottom line, even as the more forward-looking guidance ultimately drove the stock’s reaction.

Broader Solar Sector Feels the Pressure

SolarEdge’s steep decline rippled across the broader solar industry Wednesday, with shares of several other major solar companies trading lower in sympathy. First Solar, Enphase Energy, Fluence Energy, Array Technologies and Sunrun all declined alongside SolarEdge, as investors reassessed the health of the broader U.S. solar demand environment in light of the company’s cautious third-quarter outlook.

A Company Still Working Toward Sustained Profitability

Despite the disappointing guidance, some of SolarEdge’s underlying financial trends have shown improvement over a longer time horizon. The company’s two-year annualized earnings-per-share growth rate of 59.9% has outpaced its longer five-year trend, an encouraging signal even as the company’s earnings remain negative overall. Wall Street analysts have forecast that SolarEdge’s full-year adjusted earnings per share could flip from a loss of 83 cents to a projected profit of 92 cents over the next 12 months, reflecting continued optimism about the company’s longer-term trajectory even amid near-term volatility.

Even so, some of the company’s underlying structural challenges have persisted for years. SolarEdge’s operating margin came in at negative 4.6% for the quarter, and the company’s earnings per share have declined by an average of 16.9% annually over the past five years, a steeper drop than its revenue decline over the same period, reflecting a fixed cost base that has made it difficult for the company to adjust quickly to shifting demand conditions across its core markets.

With SolarEdge’s stock now trading well below its pre-earnings level despite the quarter’s improved margins and narrower losses, investors are likely to focus closely on whether the company can translate its stated progress in Europe and the U.S. commercial and industrial segments into a more encouraging outlook when it next reports results. Until residential demand in the U.S. shows clearer signs of stabilizing, analysts say SolarEdge’s recovery is likely to remain a story of incremental operational improvement overshadowed by continued uncertainty about the pace of the broader solar market’s rebound.

Investors are turning to artificial intelligence (AI) tools for guidance on their finances and investments, though they remain skeptical of its output and continue to lean on human advice ahead of key decisions, new data shows.

A new study by Gallup conducted in partnership with Edward Jones found that about three-quarters of Americans have sought financial guidance from at least once source in the last year.

Among those U.S. adults who have done so, 73% used their own internet research, while 35% talked to family members, 32% sought out professional financial advisors, 26% leaned on news or social media, and 23% talked to their friends. Another 18% sought financial guidance from AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude, among others.

Americans have broad confidence in financial advisors, with about one-in-four saying they have a great deal of confidence in them, Gallup found. (istock)

The level of confidence in the advice they received varies widely based on the source – 79% of American adults had at least some confidence in financial advisors, with about one-quarter having a great deal of confidence. By contrast, less than three in 10 have at least some confidence in AI for financial guidance, with just 3% saying they have a great deal of confidence.

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David Chubak, head of wealth management at Edward Jones, told FOX Business that what the research “reaffirms to us is that when it comes to the conversation of consequence, to making a real-life decision, people aren’t ready to trust AI as the decision maker for them, as the counselor.”

“Rather, they are still relying on their financial advisor as their trusted human partner to help them think through the process, the experience of that decision.”

“AI, as we see it, plays an important role in some of the discovery and approach to people improving their finances. When it comes to improving their financial fulfillment, people still believe inherently in the importance of a human, trust relationship,” he added.

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The study found that about 18% of American adults have used AI tools for financial guidance. (iStock/Getty Images Plus)

Chubak said that AI searches for financial guidance often involve the use of what he called “tactical” questions involving things like getting information about 401(k) retirement plans, 529 education savings accounts or the recently-launched Trump Accounts.

He said that individuals are generally not spending as much time with AI tools when it comes to addressing things like the purpose of their personal financial planning and the anxieties they may have about that.

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Chubak said that AI can help an individual refine their financial questions or concerns, which can be addressed with a human advisor. (iStock)

“There, they’re going to the advisor to have that conversation, to unroot what the real question is that they’re trying to solve and then try to solve it with them,” Chubak said.

He added that the more tactical or discovery-oriented interactions with AI tools can “really help them identify when they need an advisor,” as well as to help them “sharpen where the focus areas that they want to go are, so that the advisor can really hone in on the most impactful opportunities.”

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ASEAN-ISE is working to build a trustworthy, sustainable investment ecosystem by aligning ESG metrics across regional exchanges, tackling greenwashing, and boosting SME involvement to draw in global capital and promote long-term sustainability.

There is a quiet but profound shift underway in the capital markets of Southeast Asia. Fund managers in Singapore are recalibrating their allocation models. Institutional investors in Tokyo and Frankfurt are running ESG screens before committing to listed equities across the region. And increasingly, the companies that cannot demonstrate credible, comparable, and independently verifiable sustainability practices are finding themselves at the back of the queue — not for moral reasons, but financial ones.

This is the new reality that the ASEAN-Interconnected Sustainability Ecosystem, or ASEAN-ISE, was built to address. Launched in February 2024 through a landmark collaboration between Bursa Malaysia, the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX), the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET), and Singapore Exchange (SGX Group), ASEAN-ISE represents the region’s most ambitious and architecturally serious attempt to convert sustainability commitments into investable, bankable outcomes. Its goal is nothing less than to solidify ASEAN’s position as a leading hub for sustainable investment — and in doing so, make ESG compliance a direct driver of capital attractiveness for listed firms across the region

The timing could not be more consequential. As Europe retreats from some of its most ambitious sustainability directives — scaling back key frameworks like the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive by nearly 80% under its 2025 Omnibus Proposal — ASEAN is pressing forward. The region is not simply filling a vacuum. It is staking a claim to become the world’s most credible emerging-market ESG destination. Whether it succeeds will depend not only on the strength of its frameworks, but on its ability to confront the very real risks that could undermine investor confidence before it is fully established

The Capital Magnet: How ESG Compliance Is Driving Investment Today

The argument that ESG compliance is “good for business” has long been made in abstract terms. What is different today is that the evidence has become quantifiable, and investors are acting on it

Across ASEAN, investors, regulators, and corporations are converging on a shared goal: to make sustainability measurable, comparable, and genuinely investable. Private markets have expanded their low-carbon portfolios at a five-year compound annual growth rate of 17% — significantly outpacing the 11.9% recorded by public markets over the same period, according to MSCI. This is not a trend driven by idealism. It is driven by risk-adjusted return calculations that increasingly price ESG non-compliance as a liability rather than merely an absence of virtue.

For listed companies in ASEAN, the implications are direct. The FTSE4Good ASEAN 5 Index — which screens companies across Bursa Malaysia, IDX, the Philippine Exchange, SGX, and the Stock Exchange of Thailand against transparent ESG criteria — has become a benchmark that institutional allocators reference when constructing regional equity portfolios. Inclusion signals credibility. Exclusion signals risk. The financial premium attached to ESG-compliant listings is no longer theoretical. Vietnam is not yet part of this index. The FTSE4Good ASEAN 5 screens companies across five exchanges — and the Vietnam Exchange is not among them. This is not a criticism; it is a statement of where we are and, more importantly, where we are going. Having achieved secondary emerging market status in 2026, VNX understands that index inclusion is not granted — it is earned, through the sustained demonstration of exactly the kind of standardised, verifiable ESG infrastructure that ASEAN-ISE is now building. Joining ASEAN-ISE at the 39th CEO meeting of Asean exchanges is, in that sense, Vietnam’s most direct and deliberate step toward the credibility that regional index inclusion requires.

What ASEAN-ISE provides is the infrastructure that makes this premium scalable across borders. Prior to its establishment, ESG data in the region was fragmented, inconsistently defined, and difficult to compare across jurisdictions. A fund manager seeking to assess the sustainability credentials of a Thai property developer against a Malaysian manufacturer and a Singapore logistics firm was confronted with incompatible reporting frameworks, different disclosure timelines, and varying definitions of even foundational metrics like Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions.

ASEAN-ISE addresses this directly. The participating exchanges have collectively agreed on a set of common ESG core metrics — including standardized greenhouse gas emissions reporting, energy consumption, water usage, waste management, and social and governance indicators — to be integrated across their respective data platforms. The initiative envisions a centralized data infrastructure with a harmonized data structure, enabling what then – Bursa Malaysia CEO Datuk Muhamad Umar Swift has described as “a seamless aggregation of the ASEAN view, in promoting the region as a unified market”.

For listed firms, this harmonization is transformative. ESG compliance is no longer a matter of satisfying individual exchange requirements in isolation. It becomes a passport — one that, when properly endorsed, opens access to a far wider pool of regional and global capital than any single-market listing can command.

The Architecture of Trust: Standards, Mandates, and the ISSB Alignment

The credibility of ASEAN-ISE rests on the quality of the standards to which it anchors itself. Here, the region has made a clear and deliberate choice: alignment with the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), whose frameworks have emerged as the global baseline for comparable, decision-useful sustainability disclosures

This alignment is already being translated into regulatory mandates across the region’s leading capital markets. Malaysia’s Bursa Malaysia has moved from voluntary to mandatory sustainability reporting with ISSB-aligned climate disclosure required for large-cap Main Market listed companies beginning in fiscal year 2025. Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed a roadmap to mandate sustainability disclosure for listed companies, with ISSB-aligned climate-related reporting for large-cap companies targeted to commence in 2026. Singapore’s SGX, while adopting a phased implementation timeline — and having extended some deadlines for smaller entities in August 2025 — has committed to mandatory ISSB-aligned climate reporting as its destination standard, with full assurance requirements phased in progressively.

Underpinning these national mandates is the ASEAN Taxonomy for Sustainable Finance, now in its fourth version, which provides the region’s green finance classification system. Its multi-tiered design — a “Green” tier benchmarked to the 1.5°C Paris Agreement target, “Amber” tiers recognizing transitional activities, and a “Red” classification for activities incompatible with sustainability goals — is a masterstroke of inclusive policy architecture. It acknowledges the profound diversity of economic development and infrastructure maturity across ASEAN member states, from Singapore’s advanced financial center to the emerging economies of Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar. The taxonomy does not demand that every economy move at the same pace; it demands that every economy move in the same direction

This combination — common metrics, ISSB-aligned national mandates, and an inclusive regional taxonomy — forms the trust architecture that serious investors need before committing capital at scale. It signals that ASEAN is not building a local variant of sustainability governance. It is building a local expression of international standards. That distinction matters enormously to global institutional allocators, for whom comparability across jurisdictions is a prerequisite, not a preference

The Make-or-Break Tensions: Where the Ecosystem Is Vulnerable

For all its ambition, ASEAN-ISE faces headwinds that are as structural as they are urgent. Acknowledging them honestly is not a counsel of despair — it is a precondition for addressing them effectively

The first and most immediate threat is greenwashing. As ESG compliance becomes a capital advantage, the incentive to project sustainability credentials without fully substantiating them grows commensurately. Across the region, there are already instances of listed companies publishing sustainability reports that are more aspirational than verifiable — long on narrative, short on independently audited data. For ASEAN-ISE to function as a genuine trust infrastructure, it must develop robust verification mechanisms that go beyond disclosure requirements to encompass assurance standards. The move toward mandatory third-party assurance, already built into Singapore’s phased roadmap, needs to become a regional norm rather than a leading-market exception. In a world where investors are increasingly sophisticated and where ESG litigation is beginning to reach Asian jurisdictions, the cost of greenwashing is no longer merely reputational. It is legal, financial, and systemic.

The second tension is the SME gap. ASEAN’s economy is not built on large-cap listed companies. Small and medium enterprises constitute over 90% of businesses across the region and account for a substantial share of employment, supply chain activity, and economic output. Yet the architecture of ASEAN-ISE, like most ESG frameworks globally, is currently oriented almost entirely toward publicly listed firms. The vast SME ecosystem largely lacks the capacity, resources, and often the regulatory incentive to engage with sustainability reporting at the level required to participate meaningfully in the transition

This matters for two reasons. First, the supply chains of listed companies — through which much of the region’s real environmental and social impact flows — run directly through SMEs. A listed firm cannot credibly claim sustainability leadership if its tier-two suppliers are operating without any ESG accountability framework. Second, if the transition leaves SMEs behind, it will deepen existing inequalities within ASEAN economies rather than reduce them. Addressing the SME gap requires targeted capacity-building programmes, simplified localized reporting tools, and — critically — the development of financial incentives that make ESG compliance attractive to small businesses, not merely mandatory for large ones. ASEAN-ISE’s framework includes a provision for suppliers with strong ESG practices to access more competitive financing rates — a promising mechanism that needs far greater scale and visibility.

The third tension is governance inconsistency across member states. The pace of mandatory disclosure adoption varies significantly — from Singapore and Malaysia’s advanced frameworks to markets where sustainability reporting remains largely voluntary. Without greater convergence in the regulatory baseline, the “interconnected” in ASEAN-ISE risks becoming more aspirational than operational. The 2024 Request for Information process to develop a centralized ASEAN ESG data infrastructure is a positive step, but  the harder work of expanding regulatory alignment beyond the current five participating exchanges to encompass the full breadth of ASEAN’s diverse economies lies ahead.

The Path Forward: From Compliance to Strategy, and Toward Net Zero 2050

The most significant shift now underway in ASEAN’s sustainability landscape is the movement from ESG as a compliance exercise to ESG as a strategic orientation. This distinction is not semantic. A company that discloses its Scope 1 and 2 emissions because a regulator requires it is managing a reporting obligation. A company that integrates sustainability targets into its capital allocation decisions, its supply chain design, and its board-level governance is managing its future.

The net zero 2050 goal — adopted by ASEAN member states in alignment with the Paris Agreement — provides the long horizon against which all of this activity must ultimately be measured. The transition pathways required to reach net zero across a region as economically diverse as ASEAN are genuinely complex. They involve energy transitions in coal-dependent economies like Indonesia and Vietnam, land-use transformations in agricultural nations, and industrial decarbonisation across manufacturing sectors that are central to regional employment. The ASEAN Taxonomy’s tiered framework is the right tool for navigating this complexity — but the ambition must be sustained over decades, through political cycles and economic disruptions that will test the commitment of governments and corporations alike

For listed firms, the message from capital markets is already clear: the direction of travel is set, the standards are converging, and the investors who will determine your cost of capital are watching. Companies that treat ESG compliance as an early mover advantage — building the data systems, governance structures, and transition plans now — will find themselves better positioned not only for regulatory requirements but for the investor scrutiny that will only intensify as the decade progresses.

ASEAN-ISE, at its core, is a bet that the region’s capital markets can become an accelerant of this transition rather than a lagging indicator of it. By creating a common language for sustainability data, aligning with international standards, and building an interconnected infrastructure across the region’s major exchanges, it is establishing the conditions under which capital can follow credibility at scale

Conclusion: Credibility Is Now the Currency

The question for ASEAN’s capital markets is no longer whether ESG matters. That debate is settled — settled by the movement of capital, by the mandates of regulators, and by the mounting physical evidence of climate risk across the region. The question now is whether the region can build a sustainability ecosystem that is credible enough, comprehensive enough, and durable enough to capture the full scale of investment opportunity that ESG transition represents.

ASEAN-ISE is the most serious institutional answer to that question yet advanced. But its success is not guaranteed. It will require sustained commitment from exchanges, regulators, and listed companies. It will require honest confrontation of greenwashing risks and the SME gap. And it will require the courage to move from coordination to genuine interoperability —where that pose many challenges across regional countries.

The capital is waiting. The standards are in place. The architecture is being built. For Vietnam, joining ASEAN-ISE at this meeting is not a symbolic gesture — it is a deliberate choice to be part of the architecture rather than a recipient of its outcomes. Having achieved secondary emerging market status in 2026, the Vietnam Exchange understands that upgrading a market is not a destination. It is a starting point. The harder and more consequential work is building the credibility that justifies the upgrade — and that work is regional, not national.

What ASEAN’s capital markets must now demonstrate, to their own investors and to the world, is that their commitment to sustainability is not a declaration of intent — it is a statement of fact, verifiable, auditable, and built to endure.

In the ESG era, credibility is the currency. ASEAN-ISE is how the region intends to earn it. The Vietnam Exchange stands ready to cooperate fully and honestly on this shared journey, eager to work hand-in-hand with our fellow exchanges to build a sustainable, resilient future for all ASEAN exchanges.

Source : Capital Follows Credibility: ASEAN-ISE and the Race to Build a Sustainable Investment Ecosystem

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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.

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.”

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.

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