The Swedish music service Spotify expects that the profit margin will be slightly lower than was the case recently. The company also expects to have fewer new subscribers in the near future.
the streaming service gave no reason for the disappointing forecast, but did say that due to the uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus, it is more difficult to express an expectation.
Spotify became discredited in recent weeks after several major artists decided to remove their music from the service. According to the musicians and other critics, comedian Joe Rogan would spread incorrect information about corona in his Spotify podcast. Podcasts have been a major driver of Spotify’s growth. At the end of the quarter, there were 3.6 million podcasts on the platform, 400,000 more than in the previous quarter. The proportion of podcasts in the total hours listened to on Spotify also reached a record.
the company’s expected profit margin this quarter is 25 percent, one and a half percent less than in the fourth quarter of 2021, when Spotify made 26.5 percent profit. It is expected to add 3 million paying subscribers, up from 8 million in the last quarter of last year. Crosby, Stills and Nash are also leaving Spotify after Neil Young left Spotify last week because of Rogan’s offending podcasts, his former bandmates have also taken a stand against the music service. David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash have asked their labels to remove their work from Spotify.
not only opponents of incorrect information leave Spotify: the disseminators of possible disinformation also take it for granted, but for a completely different reason. Dutch podcast maker Jorn Luka, previously migrated from YouTube to Spotiy, decided to remove all his podcasts from the streaming platform after Spotify took some episodes offline.
See also: Spotify announces measures against coronavirus disinformation
