Spotify shares were down more than 7% in after-hours trading Wednesday, after the company provided weak user growth projections for the first quarter of 2022.Overall, the company did well in 2021, beating Wall Street expectations on revenue and earnings. But its performance has been overshadowed recently by aover how it handles misinformation on its platform, specifically from popular podcaster Joe Rogan.
CEO Daniel Ek addressed the situation, saying "the important part here is that we don't change our policies based on one creator nor do we change it based on any media cycle or call from anyone else." He noted that Spotify policies are written by internal and external experts and that Joe Rogan "also has to abide by those policies."The company beat earnings and revenue projections, and continued to grow its podcast business.
At the end of the quarter, Spotify had 3.6 million podcasts on its platform, up from 700,000 in Q4 2019.It ended the quarter with 406 million monthly active users and 180 million premium, paid subscribers.For the first quarter of this year, the company said it expects to add only 3 million premium subscribers, representing a growth of just 1.6% compared to its fourth quarter numbers.
“Apple Music is the second most popular music streaming service globally, but remains far behind Spotify in its continuing quest for streaming dominance”. Apple Music is like CNN is to Fox News.