Guest ajc Posted January 19, 2019 Share Posted January 19, 2019 Spotify is making a big push for the in-car market, plus they inadvertently revealed their India launch might happen as soon as the end of this month. https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/spotify-is-making-voice-controlled-hardware-for-the-car-and-could-launch-in-india-on-january-31/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spekulatius Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 Malone’s XM Sirius now ventures into the streaming music space by taking out Pandora: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/pandora-stockholders-approve-transaction-siriusxm-210500114.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chesko182 Posted February 2, 2019 Share Posted February 2, 2019 Another move closer into content creation, straight from the Netflix playbook... https://www.fastcompany.com/90301291/spotify-in-talks-to-buy-podcasting-giant-gimlet-media Wonder what they will do with that content knowing they own the most valuable music platform real estate? ??? Interesting that the company also produces video Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leverage Capabilities Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 Another move closer into content creation, straight from the Netflix playbook... https://www.fastcompany.com/90301291/spotify-in-talks-to-buy-podcasting-giant-gimlet-media Wonder what they will do with that content knowing they own the most valuable music platform real estate? ??? Interesting that the company also produces video I think a separate podcasting app probably makes the most sense. It's obviously a give / take between keeping the existing music platform as-is and being able to integrate / push a higher margin product. I'm sure they could set it up where you "swap" into the Spotify Podcasts app from the music app, similar to how the Facebook app will automatically open messenger. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ajc Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 Q4 highlights: - OI, NI, FCF all simultaneously positive for 1st time in company history - Total MAUs up 29% YoY - Premium subscribers up 36% YoY - Total revenue up 30% YoY - Gross margin up to 26.7% - Net cash flows from operating activities up 58% YoY - 1.8B euros in cash and short-term investments https://s22.q4cdn.com/540910603/files/doc_financials/quarterly/2018/q4/Shareholder-Letter-Q4-2018.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ajc Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 Q4 highlights: - OI, NI, FCF all simultaneously positive for 1st time in company history - Total MAUs up 29% YoY - Premium subscribers up 36% YoY - Total revenue up 30% YoY - Gross margin up to 26.7% - Net cash flows from operating activities up 58% YoY - 1.8B euros in cash and short-term investments https://s22.q4cdn.com/540910603/files/doc_financials/quarterly/2018/q4/Shareholder-Letter-Q4-2018.pdf Also, Ek's post on the Gimlet and Anchor podcast acquisitions is a good read. Contains interesting insights about user behavior and how Spotify views the overall industry. https://newsroom.spotify.com/2019-02-06/audio-first/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spekulatius Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 WHO is EK? I get the idea that SPOT could become a nice business some day, but ~$25B is a lot to pay for ”could”. I get the idea to buy FB and GOOG for 20 x earnings. I’d rather deal with crappy headlines than crappy financials. SPOT is parked on my watch list right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glorysk87 Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 WHO is EK? Can't tell if you're serious or not, but it's Daniel Ek the co-founder and CEO of Spotify Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spekulatius Posted February 7, 2019 Share Posted February 7, 2019 WHO is EK? Can't tell if you're serious or not, but it's Daniel Ek the co-founder and CEO of Spotify Ouch, thanks I missed that. Thought EK is a shorthand for something, but of course it’s a Swedish name. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted February 7, 2019 Share Posted February 7, 2019 https://stratechery.com/2019/spotifys-podcast-aggregation-play/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chesko182 Posted February 7, 2019 Share Posted February 7, 2019 A great post, as usual. A not-so-crazy-idea now (pure speculating): Spotify buys a meditation-app (or develops its own...). Fits the audio company strategy, fixed-cost structure, lowers churn, increases LTV etc. Anyone seen anything related to reactions of the labels to this new strategy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jurgis Posted February 7, 2019 Share Posted February 7, 2019 I guess $1M questions are: - How big is the podcast market going forward? Ek said going to 20%+ of Spotify listening. Is that reasonable and achievable? - What is the probability of Spotify capturing that ??% of total podcasting that would map to 20%+ of Spotify listening? - Assuming they get to 20%+ of Spotify listening. Is that enough to drive monetization/profits assuming no improvement on music side? - Assuming they get to 20%+ of Spotify listening, will that improve Spotify's position vs music labels/artists and music side of business overall? Let me throw out a simple silly model: assume current annual revenue $7B, podcasting adding 20% revenue ($1.4B), all that flowing to income/CF at 100% margin, you have $1.4B income/CF at $25B market cap - looks cheapish. Especially since regular revenue may grow double digits itself. The optimistic parts of this model are 20% rev addition and 100% margin though. Assuming 50% margin, the valuation becomes less attractive. With 207M MAUs, it's possibly somewhat realistic to add 20-40M MAUs if they can grab a large podcast slice? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jurgis Posted February 20, 2019 Share Posted February 20, 2019 Mostly questions: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/five-things-spotify-needs-to-fix-in-2019-794853/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
voyager Posted February 22, 2019 Share Posted February 22, 2019 I have a little bit of knowledge here in the podcasting space and can offer a few thoughts. 1) For info on the industry check out Edison's Share of Ear report. They also do podcast specific research as well. It's very good and used by the industry. Long story short, podcasting is growing fast, albeit the industry is still small ~$300 million doesn't monetize super well yet, and is a big opportunity for Spotify. 2) What Spotify is really good at is discovery... This is a skill that is much needed with podcasts. They think one way to do it is to have exclusive content, although one should expect them to have outside content as well. 3) The unit economics are probably better than music for podcasting since there are less middle men. 4) Strategically, it's a way for them to have an edge over Apple, who is their big competitor. Additionally, people don't use streaming very much when in the car. Podcasts are really catching on in the car and if Spotify can leverage that to get more people to use their app in the car - even by a couple percent - that's a huge value to them. The Stratechery article is great as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ajc Posted February 27, 2019 Share Posted February 27, 2019 Spotify has launched in India (https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/26/spotify-launches-in-india/). Won't help their ARPU numbers, but in all likelihood will provide a strong boost to their MAU stats judging from the response on Twitter India yesterday. Anyway I think they're focused on the right thing for now, which is user scale over revenue. Back to Twitter India... people seemed unanimously crazy about the launch news as I saw it develop, and a few were openly dissing Apple, JioSaavn, and Gaana, saying they couldn't wait to delete those accounts. Clearly it's too early to tell what market share Spotify will grab, but I think it's safe to say the early signs look relatively promising. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ajc Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 Spotify CFO, Barry McCarthy, took part in a fireside chat at the Morgan Stanley Tech, Media, and Telecom Conference on February 26th, 2019. He discussed their potential total addressable market, India, current/future margin structure, and their relationship with the labels, as well as many other things. The conversation contains numerous insights around how Spotify views their own business, and also how they see the overall audio industry. https://investors.spotify.com/events/events-calendar/event-details/2019/Morgan-Stanley-TMT-Conference-2019/default.aspx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted March 15, 2019 Share Posted March 15, 2019 Apple response to Spotify: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/03/addressing-spotifys-claims/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spekulatius Posted March 15, 2019 Share Posted March 15, 2019 Apple response to Spotify: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/03/addressing-spotifys-claims/ So a market place for a paid subscription service accuses the other market place of charging for access. Makes sense. :o Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rogermunibond Posted March 15, 2019 Share Posted March 15, 2019 Spotify is partnering with Hulu to give Premium subscribers a free Hulu ad-supported plan as part of their package. Interesting idea. Billing is still through Spotify but now Hulu gets a bump up in subs. It seems like decent idea to pair music with video content in a bundle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jurgis Posted March 15, 2019 Share Posted March 15, 2019 Apple response to Spotify: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/03/addressing-spotifys-claims/ So a market place for a paid subscription service accuses the other market place of charging for access. Makes sense. :o Yo homies, how 'bout battle rap this out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spekulatius Posted April 16, 2019 Share Posted April 16, 2019 Freakonomics podcast about Spotify, the music industry with the founder Daniel Ek: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/spotify/ I don’t own this, but I am impressed by the founder. Very much focused on user experience and very down to earth. Listening to the podcast is time well spent if you are interested in SPOT or any other company in this sector. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted May 14, 2019 Share Posted May 14, 2019 New writeup about SIRI and SPOT by Scuttleblurb (subscription required): https://www.scuttleblurb.com/sirius-pandora-siri-spotify-spot-long-term-relevance-long-term-dominance/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chesko182 Posted May 15, 2019 Share Posted May 15, 2019 would anyone care two share the two cents on Scuttleblurb's post? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ajc Posted May 21, 2019 Share Posted May 21, 2019 Sold my stake for a small gain a week or two back (after buying in at $119), though I still think management is very good, the product and brand are strong, and this will likely be a worthwhile investment over the next decade. However, in my original analysis I believe I underestimated how competitive the global space would be for the next few years. My guess is it'll take longer than I initially figured for the industry winners and losers to shake out, so for a reasonable while I imagine the returns will be steady rather than turbo charged. Holding Stitch Fix, Facebook, and Uber, together with bucket loads of cash, instead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chesko182 Posted June 28, 2019 Share Posted June 28, 2019 A recent article, presentation and twitter thread on SPOT Investing in the Podcast Ecosystem in 2019 - Andressen Howowitz https://a16z.com/2019/05/23/podcast-ecosystem-investing-2019/ ValueX Vail Presentation - DA Davidson https://valuexvail.com/presentations/#Spotify-Technology-SA-SPOT Bluegrass Capital highlighting Scuttleblurb's article on SPOT (found this the most insightful) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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