A Little Knowledge... #38

Welcome to A Little Knowledge #38 – our free weekly LinkedIn newsletter.

📬 BULLETIN NEWS - Spotify's quarterly results show growth in users - and profits

This week Spotify published its latest quarterly financial results, for the third quarter of 2023.

• They reveal that it ended September with 574 million monthly active users, with 226 million of them being premium subscribers. Those numbers were up 26% and 16% year-on-year respectively.
• Quarter-on-quarter, Spotify added 23 million active users and six million subscribers in Q3. The company said that it was its second biggest Q3 ever for net additions of listeners. Both totals were above its guidance.
• As for financials, the streaming service saw its quarterly revenues grow by 11% year-on-year to €3.36bn ($3.57bn at current exchange rates).
• Spotify recorded an operating profit of €32m for the quarter compared to a €228m operating loss this time last year. The company also posted a net profit of €65m, compared to a €302m net loss in Q3 2022.
• The company also updated its predictions for the final quarter of 2023. It expects to end this year with 601 million monthly active users – thus adding around 27 million in Q4 – and 235 million premium subscribers. That would mean around nine million net new subscribers in the year's final quarter.
• There were also reports this week that Spotify is preparing to make some tweaks to its payouts in response to the industry debates - you can read all about that here. 

👉 Music Ally archive: Spotify

🛠️ TOOLS: Platforms to pair with Patreon - our top tips

We’ve dug into our Tools archive and pulled out something which will be of use to anyone looking to use Patreon to build a paying audience around their or their artist. 

This Tools piece rounds up platforms that partner well with this approach, and that will help artists offer more to their monthly Patreon subscribers by offering them additional ways to access exclusive content or merch, or enhanced connectivity.  For instance: Fanbace is a free on-demand merch platform aiming to tackle the challenges that can hold artists back from starting to sell merchandise: upfront investment for manufacturing products, storage space needed for said stock, as well as the daunting tasks of packing, shipping, and managing orders – or the fees associated with having a third-party fulfil these for the artist.  In terms of Patreon integration, by using Fanbace, artists and their teams could frequently launch special edition merch without the need for minimum quantities, and only make them available to their Patreon supporters.  

👉 Read all of our platform suggestions – and the ways you could use them to boost your Patreon performance – here.

💼 MUSIC ALLY JOBS

The latest and best jobs for the global music business, trusted by both top music industry companies and experienced professionals on top of their game.

Are you looking for a job? Click here to see the full list of vacancies!

🤔 A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA...

 And finally… our daily Bulletin newsletter is loved by subscribers for its instant industry analysis - but secretly, the part they like most is the ‘A Little Something Extra’ section at the bottom of the email. Here's a few of the best recent links:

• Our new favourite musical mashup is Aretha Sabbath – ’Superfools’
• GOAT is a book trying to decide who's the greatest economist of all time. But what's interesting is that it's a 'generative book' making use of several generative AI models so readers can talk to it, and even disagree with the author.
• CCTV footage of bungling burglars with an added soundtrack of the Pink Panther theme and clown music. What's not to like?

This is only a glimpse into this week's The Knowledge newsletter - subscribe for FREE and every Friday it’ll arrive in your inbox with:

🎓Exclusive access to selected courses in our LEARNING HUB; 🛠️ The best new platforms in TOOLS; 🌍Highlights from our latest COUNTRY PROFILE REPORTS; 😵💫 Some great and/or strange music in SOMETHING 4 THE WEEKEND; 🕰 A look back in TIME MACHINE; 🎧The Music Ally Focus PODCAST; and 🤔 more links to our favourite unusual stuff in A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA.