Spotify reported its first quarterly earnings since going public last month, and its stock quickly took a nosedive Wednesday in after-hours trading.
Shares of the music streaming service fell about 8 percent after investors were seemingly disappointed by the company's outlook.
Spotify met most expectations: 170 million monthly active users and 75 million paid subscribers. Revenue was right in line with expectations at around $1.34 billion.
However, guidance for the current quarter was uninspiring. Revenue growth looks flat-ish, projected to be between $1.3 billion to $1.6 billion. (Thomson Reuters estimated less than $1.6 billion.) And Spotify is still losing money ー more than $200 million last quarter, though that's less than the previous quarter.
Not everyone is disappointed in Spotify. Mike Vorhaus, the president of Magid Advisors, said he was impressed by the company's performance in a crowded, competitive market.
"When you are competing successfully with names like Apple and Amazon, and you continue to grow, that's a very very good sign," he said in an interview Wednesday with Cheddar.
Vorhaus said Spotify has great potential, and the company already has a critical mass of reliable customers and two strong business models.
"As advertising increases in the mobile world, that is going to be big for Spotify as well," he said.
Spotify (announced a mobile redesign) [https://mashable.com/2018/04/24/spotify-mobile-app-redesign-free-tier-on-demand-playlists/#wiPqtX_toqqb] last week that has users and tech fans buzzing. The new app is purportedly faster and will make it easier for non-paying users to access specific songs from playlists. There will also be a new "Data Saver" mode that will help users reduce their data usage by up to 75 percent when using 3G.
For the full segment, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/spotify-reports-for-the-first-time-and-tesla-reports-less-of-a-loss-than-expected).
On this episode of Cheddar Innovates: CEO of HereAfter AI discusses how artificial intelligence can be used to preserve family history and stories, and allow you to 'talk' to loved ones that have passed; Creator of the board game 'Travel Explore Discover' explains how she came up with the idea for this informative and educational board game, and how she's using the proceeds to give back to her community; Cheddar gets a look at Curiosity Stream's 'The Humboldt Current.'
James Vlahos, Co-Founder and CEO of HereAfter AI, joins Cheddar Innovates to discuss how artificial intelligence can be used to preserve family history and stories, and allow you to 'talk' to loved ones that have passed.
Facebook parent Meta’s miss on Q4 earnings raised alarm bells amongst investors. The tech giant lost users for the first time as it invests a lot into the metaverse, its virtual realm, in the hopes that consumers will move their social media consumption there. The stock dropped around 25 percent on the report, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg chalked it up to people flocking toward apps like TikTok, even as his own platform attempts to make a big pivot to the metaverse future. "It's gonna take a long time to develop and it's gonna take a long time to bring to fruition," Rebecca Walser, president of Walser Wealth Management told Cheddar. "In the meantime, the world is moving on. We have a very short attention span, especially on social media, and we want the short little videos. And Tiktok has just taken off."
Just this week, Facebook's parent company Meta released an update for its 3D avatar creation on Facebook and messenger. This update is encouraging users of Instagram to create their virtual selves, and it is an early step towards making the metaverse vision a reality. David Ewalt, editor-in-chief at Gizmodo joins Cheddar News to discuss.
Ed Butowsky, managing partner at Chapwood Investments, joined Wake Up With Cheddar to break down the disappointing takeaways from Spotify's Q4 earnings report, which sent the stock plunging.
Google parent company Alphabet saw yet another successful quarter reporting its final earnings report for 2021 on Tuesday. The tech giant beat Wall Street expectations across the board with much of that success owed to not only the growth of its cloud business, but also its multi-platform advertising. Joanna O'Connell, Principal Analyst at Forrester explains why advertising may be one of the keys to Alphabet’s future success.
