Spotify Targets 200 Million Paid Subscribers by 2022 End

Spotify expects to register more than  200 million paid subscribers by the end of 2022.

Even with that bright subscription news, Wall Street was not thrilled with the results. The stock is down more than 6 percent in after-hours trading.

Spotify’s gross profit margin was 24.7%, two points lower than during the same quarter last year and below the company’s prior guidance. The tech firm cleared that this was because of an “unfavourable adjustment to prior period estimates for rights holder liabilities.”

Although podcasting is still not profitable for Spotify, the company said it saw double-digit growth in podcast revenue.

On a call with investors, Spotify CFO Paul Vogel referred to a one-time “restructuring charge” in its podcasting business, which seems to refer to the layoffs at Gimlet and Parcast earlier this month. 

Those changes, Vogel said, “should lead to improved productivity at select studios.”