Spotify Q4 2020 earnings ARPU pays the price for growth
Report by
Mark Mulligan
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The 20,000 Foot View: In 2020 Spotify accelerated the growth of its total user base, with emerging markets playing a key role. However, revenue increases became decoupled from user growth across all categories, resulting in ARPU deflation.
Key Insights
- Spotify finished with million subscribers, up on For the fifth successive year added more subscribers than during previous year
- Subscriber growth becoming uncoupled from premium revenue, grew by a lower million)
- End of average monthly premium ARPU was significantly in 2020 to from 2019
- Although consumption were up, they did not as strongly as users, resulting a decline in average hours user
- Spotify finished with million ad-supported monthly active (MAUs), adding million compared to in 2019
- Ad revenue by just in 2020, reaching For the first time, ad fell to below of total hitting in 2020
- Monthly ad-supported fell again in 2020, from 2019 to
- The ‘rest world’ subscriber-to-MAU ratio fell from 2019 to in 2020, down a high of in 2018.
- Revenue is 2020 was the first year 2017 that the premium revenue was less than the prior (up billion compared to billion 2019)
- Spotify finished with million podcast listeners, representing all MAUs, but growth is than revenue, meaning podcast’s annual fell in 2020
Companies and brands mentioned in this report: Spotify