(CelebrityAccess) — Swedish streaming giant Spotify reported big boosts in revenue, and subscribers while narrowing losses for the second fiscal quarter of 2019.
According to Spotify’s financial filings, the company reported revenue of €1,667 million in Q2, representing growth of 31% year-over-year.
Gross Margin was 26.0% in Q2, beating their estimates for the quarter, driven by better than expected streaming delivery costs and slower than expected release of podcast content, the company said.
Spotify also pared their losses for the quarter, reporting a loss of €47m, sharply lower than the €90m they reported in Q2 2018 and beating their own estimates for the quarter.
Spotify also showed it’s maintaining its lead as the dominant streaming service in the sector, with the all important monthly active user count for the service hitting 242 million, up by 29% and beating the high end of their earlier guidance.
“Outperformance was broad-based, with most of our geographic regions growing faster than our expectations. Timing of certain global music releases yielded some incremental benefit, as did our launch on PlayStation consoles across the Middle East and Latin America. Of note, two markets that have been long tied to physical music distribution, Germany and Japan, both hit milestones during Q2, performing materially better than forecast. Additionally, our newest market India performed well and in line with expectations,” Spotify in an earnings release.
Spotify also revealed that it now has 108 million premium subscribers globally, up by 31% from the company’s 2018 Q2, but short of their growth estimates.
Still, the company added 8 million new subscribers for the quarter and 12 million total in 2019, well ahead of Apple’s figures which were most recently disclosed in June.
The streamer’s quarterly financials come as the company reports it has secured new licensing deals with two of the major labels.
“We have reached agreement with two of our four major label partners on the renewal of our global sound recording licenses, and are in active discussions with the other two. This is the sixth round of label negotiations we’ve worked through in our 13 year history and, while it is typically a long drawn-out process, it has become part of the normal cadence of the business,” Spotify’s Daniel Ek said in a statement.
