Whether Wall Street responds to those improvements remains unclear, however, especially given massive macroeconomic headwinds like raging inflation, expected interest rate increases, and even broader political instability. The broader profitability picture remains problematic, though 2022 could be Spotify’s turnaround year. Notwithstanding the addition of 300,000 podcasts during Q3 2021 (for a total of 3.2 million programs), Spotify only noted on the engagement front: “The percentage of MAUs that engaged with podcast content continued to increase throughout the quarter, marking an acceleration relative to Q2 trends.” Said percentage remained flat at 25 percent from Q4 2020 into Q1 2021 and increased “modestly” between last year’s first and second quarters. And with the company set to detail its Q4 2021 revenue specifics eight days from now, on Wednesday, February 2nd, it’ll be interesting to see how podcasts performed in terms of interactions as a percentage of Spotify MAUs. Though the move appears inconsequential in the context of Spotify’s multibillion-dollar bet on podcasts, it doesn’t seem to spell confidence in the format. Diversifications into arenas like podcasting also remain speculative: just recently, Spotify shut down its pioneering podcast studio – and laid off some of the division’s 10 to 15 employees. After years of surging subscriber growth, the numbers are plateauing in wealthier nations like the US. Bringing the focus back to recent developments concerning Spotify specifically, a number of issues are emerging.
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