{"id":301331,"date":"2025-07-29T13:48:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T13:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/301331\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T13:48:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T13:48:14","slug":"spotify-q2-2025-earnings-report-subscriber-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/301331\/","title":{"rendered":"Spotify Q2 2025 Earnings Report, Subscriber Update"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAudio\u00a0streaming\u00a0giant\u00a0Spotify<\/a>\u00a0posted second-quarter subscriber gains to end June with 276 million paying premium subscribers, up from 268 million as of the end of the first quarter in March. Monthly active users (MAUs) grew to 696 million from 678 million. Management had previously forecast 273 million premium subs and 689 million MAUs.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn the first half of 2025, subscriber net additions grew more than 30 percent compared to the first half of 2024, and this marks the company\u2019s second-highest second quarter for MAU net additions,\u201d Spotify said on Tuesday. MAUs were driven by \u201cgrowth across all regions, with outperformance led by Rest of the World, Latin America and Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, in its latest earnings report, the company also posted a quarterly loss rather than a predicted profit, which had been expected given that the company has been boosting its bottom line with price increases, cost reductions<\/a>, and a recent pullback from exclusive podcast deals in favor of non-exclusive pacts (case in point: Joe Rogan<\/a>). <\/p>\n

\n\tBut the firm reported a swing from a \u20ac274 million year-ago profit to a second-quarter loss of \u20ac86 million ($100 million), or 42 euro cents per share, as its operating expenses rose 8 percent to \u20ac914 million ($1.06 billion). Drivers of the profit hit were increased personnel, professional services and marketing costs, as well as what the company calls \u201csocial charges,\u201d meaning payroll taxes that go up with the firm\u2019s stock price. As such, Spotify was the victim of its recent share gains.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpotify shares fell in Tuesday pre-market trading.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpotify\u2019s second-quarter revenue jumped 10 percent to \u20ac4.19 billion ($4.85 billion), led by a 12 percent gain in premium revenue. Advertising-supported revenue, seen as a growth opportunity, dropped slightly.\u00a0Spotify CEO Daniel Ek pointing to advertising as a current weak spot in the business on the earnings call, even as the company noted it has grown monthly active advertisers by more than 40% year over year.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe one area that hasn\u2019t yet met our expectations is our ads business. We\u2019ve simply been moving too slowly, and it\u2019s taken longer than expected to see the improvements we initiated to take hold. It\u2019s really an execution challenge, not a problem with the strategy,\u201d Ek said on the call.<\/p>\n

\n\tEk\u00a0touted growth initiatives on Tuesday after cautious near-term guidance during the first-quarter update. \u201cThe short term may bring some noise,\u201d he had said back then. \u201cBut we remain confident in the long-term story, and the direction we\u2019re heading in feels clearer than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Tuesday, he said: \u201cPeople come to Spotify and they stay on Spotify. By constantly evolving, we create more and more value for the almost 700 million people using our platform. This value not only benefits users but it\u2019s attracting more people to streaming and as a result, it\u2019s also boosted the industries of music, podcasts, and audiobooks.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe company also highlighted Spotify\u2019s emphasis on video, with the company now boasting 430,000 video podcasts on Spotify, which continues to outperform with consumption growing 20 times faster than audio-only consumption since 2024.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor the current third quarter, Spotify projected that its MAUs would grow to 710 million, with premium subscribers reaching 281 million.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpotify\u2019s stock recently hit an all-time high of $785.00, giving the company a market value of around $160\u00a0billion, amid investor optimism in the company\u2019s outlook before a drop in recent days.<\/p>\n

\n\tEvercore ISI analyst Mark Mahaney used the headline \u201cWill The Record Skip?\u201d for his earnings preview, highlighting such financial risks as a negative foreign-exchange impact from the weakening U.S. dollar, given that Spotify reports its financials in euros, and \u201cmaterial social charges given the run-up in shares.\u201d He maintained his \u201coutperform\u201d rating and $750 stock price target on Spotify.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Bernstein analyst Ian Moore recently reiterated his \u201coutperform\u201d rating with a higher $840 stock price target, citing \u201cunderappreciated pricing power and superfan upside.\u201d He concluded: \u201cWhile we expect foreign exchange to weigh moderately on premium average revenue per user and top-line growth versus guidance and expectations in the quarter and for the remainder of the year, user metrics and tailwinds from price increases should deliver.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNetflix last week unveiled<\/a> a promotional deal with Spotify for the video streaming giant\u2019s Adam Sandler film Happy Gilmore 2. As a result, Spotify users are able to play an interactive audio-visual game called the Happy Gilmore 2 Tournament, which allows them to, by tilting their phones, chip golf balls, navigate moments from the movie, and unlock audio clips.<\/p>\n

\n\tCaitlin Huston contributed to this report. <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audio\u00a0streaming\u00a0giant\u00a0Spotify\u00a0posted second-quarter subscriber gains to end June with 276 million paying premium subscribers, up from 268 million as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[51,522,6603,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-301331","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-international","10":"tag-spotify","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114936840613096652","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}