Spotify is doing well at the start of the year, with a profit of 131 million euros in the first quarter and a turnover of 2.7 billion euros, up 24% over one year. The Swedish giant claims 422 million users.
The war in Ukraine, the Joe Rogan affair or the giant global blackout that occurred in March did not affect Spotify’s financial performance over the first three months of the year. The Swedish music streaming giant is doing well at the start of the year, posting a profit of 131 million euros in the first quarter and a turnover of 2.7 billion euros, up 24% over a year. The overwhelming majority of the Scandinavian company’s revenue comes from paid subscribers, who now number 182 million on the platform, two million more than in the previous quarter.
In total, Spotify claims 422 million active users at the end of the first three months of the year, compared to 406 million at the end of the last quarter of 2021. However, the number of users of the Swedish firm has been impacted by the outage that affected its services in March. And for good reason, it has forced users who no longer have access to their account to create a new one, which has inflated the number of subscriptions by three million additional people. Without it, Spotify would have reached 419 million users in the first quarter, during which the company entered into a partnership with Google to offer its own payment system to its users on Android. She also signed an agreement with FC Barcelona to affix her name to the mythical Camp Nou.
The impact of the suspension of the platform in Russia limited
Between January and March, the Apple Music rival was rocked by the war in Ukraine, which led the Swedish group to take the decision to disconnect its service in Russia during the month of April. With the cessation of its activities in Russia, Spotify says it has already lost 1.5 million subscribers and expects to lose 600,000 more in the current quarter.
The music streaming giant, however, did not communicate on the impact of the controversy around Joe Rogan, accused of conveying disinformation on Covid-19 in his podcasts. It must be said that Spotify had spent more than 100 million dollars in 2020 to afford the exclusivity of the show “The Joe Rogan Experience”.
For the second quarter, the Swedish giant is targeting 428 million active users, including 187 million paying subscribers. Over the period, sales should reach 2.8 billion euros. But the platform, which is struggling to be profitable, should plunge back into the red with a loss of 197 million euros. Last year, it conceded $38.4 million in losses, compared to $664 million in 2020.