Music streaming company Spotify revealed its financial data for the second quarter of the fiscal year 2019 on Wednesday. Livemint reported that the company reported losses, missing subscriber targets but listeners have multiplied in number.
About 232 million have started to listen in on the platform, a 7% rise from the same time over the last quarter and a 29% improvement from last year's number of 180 million listeners.
The company's subscriber count, according to analysts, appears to hint at half those users being from Spotify's ad-supported business. Of those 232 million users, about 108 million are paid subscribers, and Asia remained an area of growth for the app. The company also said that this wasn't ideal for them-this number is way below its expected 107-110 million paid subscribers.
The company looked to India as an indicator of its service. Spotify didn't reveal how many listeners or subscribers it has in India. Instead, it had hit the millions within only months of launching there. The company said that India was a good region to them, as their regional performance were parallel to what they expected for the area.
A bright spot for the company might have to be its podcasts. The company revealed in its earnings report that podcast listeners have grown by over 50% during the last quarter, and it has already almost doubled at the start of the year. The Verge reported that subscriber numbers have grown overall with a growth of 9% compared to the last quarter.
Spotify invested in podcasting through their acquisition of podcasting networks Gimlet Media and Anchor, where tools are available for creators to build and publish their podcasts and then make money off it.
It also acquired Parcast, another podcast network, to strengthen their efforts. The company invested as much as $500 million in Gimlet to build up its podcasting business.
Its subscriber count may have been climbing since it acquired the podcasting companies, but it remained operating at a loss of $3.3 million.
That is surprising as it had gained about $1.7 billion in subscriber revenue and another $184 million in ad-supported revenue. It hopes that the podcasting gains it had would off-set such a loss.
The company also hopes India will answer these challenges. Reports have revealed that the average revenue per user for music streaming in the country amounted to $2.38. It is expected to reach around $227 million by 2023, with an annual CAGR of 1.6%.
