9 Big Takeaways From Spotify’s Q2 Earnings Call

Today's Q2 2018 earnings call was, as CEO Daniel Ek promised they would be, filled with information both for investors and the rest of us. Here are 9 big takeaways:

• Users are continuing to flock to the streamer – Spotify ended June with 180 million monthly active users, including 83 million paid subscribers. That's up 30.4% and 40.7% respectively over the same quarter 2017.
• Losses continue despite revenue growth - Spotify generated revenues of $1.5B USD in Q2, up 26.4% year-on-year.  But the net loss was$461.4M compared to a net loss of $220M for the same quarter last year.
• Spotify For Artists is a hit – 200,000 artists now use the marketing and analytics platform monthly.  CEO Daniel Ek also repeated his promise to build an ecosystem that enables "1 million creators to make a living off the platform."
• Spotify's Family and Student plans are driving growth alongside bundles with Hulu and others.
• What churn rate?  Ek debunked a report of 16% churn rates with a claim of 4% and falling in the US.
• Don't expect price increases any time soon, despite a current experiment in Scandinavia.  
• Revenue growth will come from nore paid subscribers and advertising, not from paying less to creators and labels.
• No Exclusives – expect in podcasts.
• No Push Into Video – "We're an audio first platform," reminded EK.