😍 REVIEWS News – Paris/France.
First the controversy surrounding the no less popular and controversial podcast star Joe Rogan, then the announcement of the sponsorship deal worth around $300 million with FC Barcelona, which also includes the naming rights of the mythical Camp Nou: the first quarter consisted of Spotify's All But Uneventful.
Of course, the war in Ukraine also affected the business of the market leader in Streaming musical. The service closed its offices in Russia early. In addition, access to Russian state media content has been restricted and RT and Sputnik's offering in the EU and "other markets" has been removed. The platform itself initially remained available. In mid-March, however, the subscription offer was discontinued, and about two weeks later – in reference to the possible consequences for employees and listeners due to the new Russian media legislation – as was the free version based on advertising.
More about 2 million subscribers
At the end of the first quarter of 2022, Spotify now had 182 million subscribers and 422 million monthly users – after 180 million and 406 million respectively at the end of last year. According to Spotify, however, a one-time effect was important for monthly active users: After technical difficulties in March, some users had to create a new account, which on paper led to around three million additional monthly active users.
Russia's withdrawal resulted in the loss of approximately 1,5 million subscribers. CFO Paul Vogel had already anticipated this in mid-March and remarked at the time that without this effect expectations would be exceeded, which also implied that layoffs due to the Joe Rogan debate were apparently limited. Excluding the Russia effect, subscriber growth has exceeded expectations and the overall business development is very satisfactory, according to Spotify. In Latin America and Europe in particular, growth exceeded expectations.
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With an increase of three million (and 418 million active users), this forecast was also rather conservative and had disappointed investors. – also because the service has announced that it will no longer publish annual forecasts. For the current quarter, Spotify expects an increase to 187 million subscribers. Another 600 subscription losses due to the completion of Russia's withdrawal are likely to have an impact here, as the Swedish company reports. Pre-market, the share rose nearly 000%, but then lost around 3% on the outlook, having recently come under pressure following weak Netlix numbers.
Asked about the video service's first loss of subscribers in more than 10 years, Spotify boss Daniel Ek stressed in an interview with investors after the figures were presented that he saw only limited parallels between Netflix and Spotify. Sure, both are media companies and run on subscriptions, "but that's where the similarities end," says Ek. Unlike Netflix, Spotify licenses much of its content and doesn't produce it itself, and Spotify also has a strong free plan with advertising. In general, the audio market will continue to grow strongly. The Swede also highlighted the appeal of Barca's expensive sponsorship and mentioned, among other things, the large number of fans and the brand awareness of FC Barcelona.
SOURCE: Reviews News
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