Spotify's monthly active users increased by 29% year-on-year to 232 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2019, outperforming its 222-228 million MAU guidance range. However, CEO Daniel Ek said this was not because of growth in the Indian market, which the company said “performed well and in line with expectations”. He said Spotify Lite - now in 36 countries - was among the reasons behind the increase in MAUs. Users listened to more than 17 billion hours of content, up 35% year-over-year. Ek also said that the company was looking to expand into the African, Russian and South Korean markets. It said that outperformance was mostly “broad based”, and cannot be attributed to specific reaons. It's worth noting that Asia remained Spotify’s fastest growing region. Spotify has reached agreements with two out of their four major music labels on renewal of their global sound recording licenses, and is in active discussions with the other two. Premium subscriptions missed forecast Total revenue grew by 31% year-on-year and stood at €1,667 million; premium subscriptions accounted for €1,502 million of the total revenue. Premium subscribers increased by 31% to 108 million subscribers. However, the company fell short of the midpoint of their forecasted range of 107-110 million premium subscribers. Monthly churn also decreased to an all time low of 4.6%. Ad-supported revenue was €165 million and grew 34% year-on-year - it is worth noting that this was the fastest year-over-year growth rate since 2016. Noticeably, for the ad-supported business, revenues outperformed forecasts,…
