The company posted a third quarter operating income of 32 million euros ($34.08 million), its first quarterly profit since 2021, helped by a higher gross margin and lower marketing and personnel costs.
Its gross margin rose to 26.4% in the July-September period, up 166 basis points from the year-earlier period.
After spending more than a billion euros in building up its podcast business, Spotify has been keeping a tight lid on costs, laying off 6% of its employees earlier this year and in July raising prices for its premium plans across several countries.
The number of monthly active users rose 26% to 574 million in the third quarter, beating Spotify’s guidance and analysts’ forecast of 565.7 million.
Premium subscribers, who account for most of the company’s revenue, rose 16% to 226 million, topping estimates of 223.7 million, according to IBES data from LSEG.
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Revenue rose 11% to 3.36 billion euros, beating estimates of 3.33 billion. Ad-Supported revenue grew 16% from a year earlier as music advertising revenue re-accelerated, driven by growth in impressions sold and stable pricing, the company said. Podcast advertising also grew by double digits.
Spotify’s monthly user forecast for the fourth quarter sets the company firmly on target to reach 1 billion users and $100 billion of revenue annually by 2030. Analysts had expected a forecast of 591.2 million listeners.
It also expects premium subscribers to reach 235 million in the last three months of the year and revenue to reach 3.7 billion euros. Analysts were expecting a forecast of 232.4 million premium subscribers and revenue of 3.69 billion euros.
