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Shares of Spotify fell on Wednesday after the company reported earnings for the first quarter of 2022.
Shares fell 10% in the afternoon amid a difficult season of earnings for technology stocks.
Here are the key figures:
- Earnings per share: 21 eurocents against an estimated loss of 24 eurocents on Refinitiv
- Income: 2.66 billion euros against 2.62 billion euros on Refinitiv
The company, which has invested heavily in its podcasting and is trying to increase advertising in the space, said the advertising revenue was 282 million euros. This was 11% of total revenue, which, according to the company, was the largest first quarter for this segment. However, according to FactSet, it did not live up to analysts’ expectations of 304.1 million euros in advertising revenue.
Spotify ended the quarter with 182 million paid subscribers, up 15% year-over-year but below the original forecast of 183 million. The company said that leaving Russia resulted in the loss of 1.5 million subscribers. Subscription revenue rose to 2.38 billion euros, up 23% over the year.
Spotify reached 422 million monthly active users, or MAUs, in the first quarter, up 19% from the same period last year and exceeding its own recommendations by 4 million. According to the FactSet consensus, it also exceeded analysts’ expectations.
At the end of the quarter, there were 4 million podcasts on its Spotify platform, compared to 3.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. The increase in the number of MAUs engaged in its podcasts continued to outpace the overall growth of MAU, while the share of podcasts in total hours of consumption on the platform reached a record high, the company said.
Spotify said that in March, when there was a brief shutdown of the service, which led to the automatic exit of users from the platform, about 3 million users probably created new accounts to re-login. The company said in April, a month after the shutdown. , he saw the abolition of this advantage.
Spotify expects to place 428 million MAU in the second quarter, reflecting losses from the closure of Russian operations, as well as a complete reversal of benefits from the March shutdown. The company expects to reach 187 million paid subscribers.
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