Analytic Dreamz: Notorious Mass Effect - "SPOTIFY WILL RAISE PRICES AS IT INVESTS IN NEW FEATURES AND TARGETS 1 BILLION USERS"

Episode Date: August 26, 2025

Linktree: ⁠https://linktr.ee/Analytic⁠Join The Normandy For Additional Bonus Audio And Visual Content For All Things Nme+! Join Here: ⁠https://ow.ly/msoH50WCu0K⁠In this segment of Notorious Mass Effect, Analytic Dreamz explores Raymix and Grupo Quintanna’s “El Final de Nuestra Historia” (2022), a fusion of electrocumbia and traditional cumbia. Raymix, a former NASA intern turned Mexican music innovator, and Oaxaca’s Grupo Quintanna craft a heartbreak anthem that peaked at #7 on Billboard Regional Mexican Airplay (2023). Analytic Dreamz dives into its streaming success on Spotify, TIDAL, and YouTube, driven by emotional storytelling and cumbia’s revival, with strong digital sales in Mexico and Oaxaca.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Now, of course, covering this, you have to realize that my home base is indeed Spotify. So when it comes to covering this particular subject matter, I have to keep it eight more than 92. But I just have to put that on on front street because of course, this is home base for me personally. Now, ultimately, that doesn't stop me from covering the news as when it comes to Spotify and ultimately leading to raising their prices. they're basically talking about raising their prices effective september 2025 in south asia middle east africa europe latin america and asia pacific so when it comes to that obviously u.s and canada are not included in its first round of increases but you're probably thinking to yourself why is spotify out of all platforms raising their prices well ladies and gentlemen let me break it down for you

because of course I go by the name of analytic dreams so we're going to break down to analytics objectively speaking so ultimately the revenue for Spotify as of right now is set to be 4.8 billion the analyst consensus was to have 4.9 billion right the net loss currently is a hundred million compared to the quarter to 2024 profit of 270 no 319 million and then you have the operating expense for Spotify being a billion dollars net finance costs is cost being 417 million and then you have the quarter three revenue set to be 4.9 billion versus the at versus the analyst's expectations of 5.2 billion dollars now when it comes to that ultimately covering this and talking about how spotify is raising this prices is not only to improve profit margins while funding the

new services but ultimately when Alex Neustrum came out who's the Spotify co-president he came out said quote price increases and adjustments are part of our toolbox now and we'll do it when it makes sense so ultimately I know a lot of people who are out here and let's just say they're not going about it the most legal fashion as far as listening to music right the main reason reason why these DSPs grew more popular in the first place is because a lot of people is run into certain platforms I'm not going to name that was easily accessible and gave them access to music let's just say for free right so now with the Spotify subscription with the Apple music subscription the alternative was just to let people keep

pirating music because nobody wanted to buy physical copies right so now ultimately having Drake being the pioneer I forget when it was back in 2018 2017 when they spearheaded the movement uh really apple as far as the streaming element becoming more popular that's probably why and to this day drake is one of the more stream artists in the world but in the big 2025 Spotify has reported a bunch of just financial challenges and even though their premium subscribers rose 12% as far as to 276 million and monthly active users just grew 11%. The subscribers net additions up over 30% compared to the halfway point of 2024

and revenue increased 10% as far as to 4.1 billion euros, right? Driven by 16% rise in premium revenue even though it fell short of the 4.2 billion euros as far as analysts consensus. There's a net loss of 86 euros was recorded compared to the 277. million euros as far as in the quarter to tool of 2024. Now you're probably thinking, why am I talking in euros? Because this unequivocally affects the people in South Asia, Middle East, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and Asia Pacific. So for listeners in those regions, because you know, shout out to everybody who listens,

is definitely worldwide. Last time I checked the analytics. So speaking in their language as far as the currency that they use and what the price is rising from as far as from 1099 euros to 1199 euros per month, they probably want it spelled out to them in their currency right so getting back to it when it comes to the higher operating expenses and stock related costs that's the reason for these prices increase that as reason for the price increase and of course when it comes to spotify's quarter three guidance support and the ultimate analytics that they've been acquiring is below an analyst expectations

and reflects the overall not you know the current state state of the economy with not a lot of people having exposable income like that because of them being in a hard place right you know how to say rock in a hard place where a lot of people is that rock so when it comes to the stock falling over 11% post earnings and marked Spotify's worst day in two years so despite the growth spotify is still struggling to balance expansion with profitability which of course when people hear that when it was switching back to dollars when people hear that a platform is making 4.8 billion dollars best believe they don't want to hear about any type of financial struggles they just want the subscription price to stay the same so when it comes to that a lot of

people are upset right the long-term goal for spotify is one billion plus users and northstrom who i said earlier is the co-president of spotify he essentially came out and said quote over a quarter of a billion subscribers are currently paying us every month are we for a billion I think it's not possible or it's not impossible at all but then you know what I'm saying I was like damn look at the state of hip hop like what's going on so now looking at the long-term plan looking at some of the new features that they're going to implement right they have a superfan subscription that's in development so obviously this is not out yet but this is currently what they're working on and it could cost $6 a month and that the biggest music fans it may include remix slash mashup features exclusive content

or enhanced engagement tools and then you have the AI and personalization tools which we've already seen as far as the AI DJ which you know I'm not the biggest fan of but ultimately if somebody doesn't want to put together the whole playlist I guess the AI helps create a more interesting playlist for them in a low friction way so anyways then we get to the content expansion expansion of audiobooks, podcasts, like this one, direct publishing deals as far as the co-bought deal and August of this year, right? And nearly 9 billion playlists created by users, which is very interesting as when it comes to the ubiquity strategy, it expands across devices and ecosystems to lock in subscribers. Now, ultimately what that means is they're going to keep

putting stuff in the pot to make the price increase makes sense. So that's, ultimately why we're talking about this as Spotify is raising the prices, but they're also thinking of ways to increase and uplift and upgrade the product that they're giving to their subscribers, right? Now, when it comes to momentum, when it comes to growth, there's definitely interesting growth for Spotify, but profitability concerns linger from a lot of analysts in the field because for the simple fact is, people don't know if we hit our ceiling on fans and the amount of fans you could acquire on one streaming platform. Even though you have audiobooks, even though you have podcasts like this one, even though you have music percolating all throughout the ecosystem of Spotify, it still is a very interesting problem because of course they're raising the overhead. And despite its first annual profit in 2024, Spotify saw a,

a significant quarter to 2025 net loss showing the ongoing problem between balancing growth and profitability. So a lot of investors probably won't have any problems right now because currently, you know, the stock is doing well because you still have 2024 to make up for it. But when you're not increasing year over year, it goes to show that maybe you run into some financial issues in the future because now we're not seeing an increase like we did in 2020. 24 so investors are going to start thinking hold up and Spotify on the downfall or on the um is it basically decreasing in value because they've hit their ceiling that is something that i can't

answer currently ultimately i just wanted to cover this in the objective fashion even though you know my bread is butter definitely in spotify and when it comes to that um just want to give it to y'all and just so y'all know there's always eight i'll always keep you it ate more than 92 even if it's home base as far as Spotify and one of the interesting things and i saved this to the end because you know obviously i'm not trying to beef with this particular content creator but i remember when anthony fantano had a video and he was talking about how Spotify was like one of the worst platforms in history as far as uh streaming things of that nature because of its payouts and things that nature um and one of the facts that he had well the facts that he said uh you know i think

his opinion but he ultimately was saying they had one of the worst payouts and then one of the other reasons he said was one of the worst platforms was because it pays podcasters too much i was like hold on now is this man player hayton ain't no way this man mad at spotify because they take care of podcasters now you know of course you already know i'm a little biased when it comes to that but i just thought that was the funniest thing in the world he he said spotify it was the worst platform because it was out here paying podcasts is what they're worth so i thought that was interesting but um Ultimately, I wanted to add that at the end because that was a little side tangent that I don't think deserves a full segment. So when it comes to that, overall, the subject matter was Spotify, raises the prices, showcasing why they're raising the prices and ultimately letting you know some of the new features that Spotify has coming soon.

So with that being said, click my link to your bio. Let me know on one of my social media is. What do you think about Spotify? Raising the prices in South Asia, Middle East, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and Asia, Pacific. and ultimately why do you think Spotify is having a hard time balancing profitability and growth