In its announcement for the latest set of financial results, Spotify has announced the departure of CFO Barry McCarthy, who oversaw the IPO in 2018. He will retire in January 2020.
McCarthy, a former Netflix exec, has been in the role for just over four years. During that time, monthly active users (MAUs) and subscriber numbers have swelled.
In its statement, Spotify noted the “pivotal role” he played in Spotify’s listing and helping to establish it as a public company. McCarthy will be replaced by Paul Vogel, who is currently Spotify’s VP of FP&A, treasury and investor relations. The pair have worked together closely for the last three years.
Pending shareholder approval, it is expected that McCarthy will be re-appointed to the Spotify board, a role he held prior to joining the company as CFO. The announcement follows the recent departure of chief accountancy officer Luca Baratta, global head of curation Mike Biggane and global head of music Nick Holmstén.
In its latest Q3 results, Spotify hit its targets with 113 million premium subscribers, up 31% year-on-year. Total MAUs grew 30% year-on-year to 248 million, outperforming the high end of the company’s guidance.
Developing regions continue to be a “significant driver”, according to Spotify. Southeast Asia remains the fastest growing region (excluding India). India outperformed Spotify’s own forecast by 30% this quarter as a result of a broad-based marketing campaign.
We continue to feel very good about our competitive position in the market
Spotify
Net subscriber growth exceeded forecasts and was led by a strong performance in both Family Plan and Student Plan. During the quarter, Spotify announced a US partnership with AT&T, which offers Spotify Premium as an add-on to select plans.
In its statement, Spotify revealed how its performance compared to rivals. The Swedish company said that publicly available data shows they are adding around twice as many subscribers per month as Apple Music. It claims user engagement is double that of Apple Music, while churn is half the rate of its main rival.
“We continue to feel very good about our competitive position in the market,” said the statement.
“Elsewhere, our estimates imply that we continue to add more users on an absolute basis than Amazon. Our data also suggests that Amazon’s user base skews significantly more to ad-supported than premium, and that average engagement on our platform is approximately [three times that of Amazon Music].”
It follows reports that Amazon Music was the fastest growing DSP in percentage terms.
Total revenue of €1.73 billion in Q3 (£1.5bn) was up 28% year-on-year in Q3. Premium revenue was €1.56bn (£1.35bn), up 29% year-on-year, while ad-supported revenue was €170m (£147m), up 20% year-on-year.
Operating profit was €54m (£46.7m) for the quarter and €4m (£3.46m) for the year to date.
For the premium business, average revenue per user (ARPU) of €4.67 (£4.04) in Q3 was down 1% year-on-year (down 3% excluding the impact from currency fluctuations).
The Q4 guidance for total monthly active users is 255m to 270m, while total premium subscribers are forecast to hit 120m to 125m.
Spotify For Artists now has 465,000 monthly active artists, up 365% from the 100,000 announced 18 months ago.
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