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2021-03-09
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Spotify Is Rocking And Rolling
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{"i18n":{"language":"zh_CN"},"detailType":1,"isChannel":false,"data":{"magic":2,"id":323042345,"tweetId":"323042345","gmtCreate":1615293426687,"gmtModify":1703486872665,"author":{"id":3571720342866771,"idStr":"3571720342866771","authorId":3571720342866771,"authorIdStr":"3571720342866771","name":"Liting","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/33c2a223b61fe40fef0583579fd70026","vip":1,"userType":1,"introduction":"","boolIsFan":false,"boolIsHead":false,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"individualDisplayBadges":[],"fanSize":1,"starInvestorFlag":false},"themes":[],"images":[],"coverImages":[],"extraTitle":"","html":"<html><head></head><body><p>$$</p></body></html>","htmlText":"<html><head></head><body><p>$$</p></body></html>","text":"$$","highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"link":"https://laohu8.com/post/323042345","repostId":1123435119,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1123435119","kind":"news","pubTimestamp":1615289149,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1123435119?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2021-03-09 19:25","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Spotify Is Rocking And Rolling","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1123435119","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"Summary\n\nThe February 2021 Stream On event explains that Spotify’s future is exciting!\nLike Amazon, ","content":"<p>Summary</p>\n<ul>\n <li>The February 2021 Stream On event explains that Spotify’s future is exciting!</li>\n <li>Like Amazon, Spotify focuses on growth and FCF as opposed to reported accrual earnings.</li>\n <li>There are now over 60,000 tracks delivered to Spotify every day!</li>\n</ul>\n<p><b>Introduction</b></p>\n<p>My thesis is that Spotify (SPOT) is well-positioned to continue being the leader in audio as the world changes. Co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek is special. Following former CFO Barry McCarthy, current CFO Paul Vogel has big shoes to fill and I think he is up to the challenge.</p>\n<p>Spotify reports their financials in euros. At the time of this writing, $1 equals €0.84.</p>\n<p><b>Stream On</b></p>\n<p>It has been nearly 3 years since Spotify’s March 2018 Investor Day and it was nice to get some updates at Spotify’s February 2021 Stream Onevent.</p>\n<p>Global Co-Head of Music Jeremy Erlich noted that there are now over 60,000 tracks delivered to Spotify every day! The Spotify library contains over 70 million tracks, 4.5 billion playlists and more than 2 million podcasts per Chief R&D Officer Gustav Söderström.</p>\n<p>Chief Content & Advertising Business Officer Dawn Ostroff said there are now over 7,500 artists at Spotify generating more than $100,000 per year. She noted that in the U.S. consumers spend about the same amount of time listening to digital audio as they do watching digital video (over 9 hours per week). She added that digital audio advertising has lagged digital video advertising and that terrestrial and satellite radio are a $30 billion ad industry without the insights of modern advertising.</p>\n<p>Noting that advertisers are flying blind when podcast consumption is based on downloads, she revealed that Spotify’s shift to streaming unlocks missing data. Spotify’s Ad Insertion [SAI] has become one of their most in-demand ad tools as it lets advertisers reach the right audiences and understand the impact of their ads.</p>\n<p>CEO Ek said there were 3 million creators on Spotify 3 years ago and by the end of 2020 it was up to 8 million! He thinks there could be as many as 50 million creators by 2025! He emphasized that Spotify has a head start in audio of more than a decade and that this advantage gives them tremendous data, insights and experiences along with unrivaled size and scale. Spotify’s head start reminds me of what Bill Mesce Jr. said about HBO’s head start over Showtime in his<i>Inside the Rise of HBO</i>book:</p>\n<blockquote>\n It was a head start Showtime never overcame. By the late 1980s, HBO had a brand recognition level in the same league as Coca-Cola, meaning you had to have been living in a cave since 1972 not to know what HBO was. HBO had become so identified in the public mind with cable TV that many cable customers thought HBO and their cable company were the same thing!\n</blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n [Location: 1,307]\n</blockquote>\n<p>The early leader has more advantages than just brand recognition. At the March 2018Investor Daythen CFO Barry McCarthy noted that the older subscription companies have an edge over newer subscription companies because older companies have lower average churn rates such that they can beat newer companies like a drum.</p>\n<p>I believe these updates are very encouraging as they show that Spotify has tremendous momentum. The fact that 60,000 songs are updated daily vs. just 20,000 2 years ago shows that the music industry is changing and the old ways of doing things with the labels are fading quickly. The large number of artists and listeners is a powerful combination and no one wants to be left out of the Spotify ecosystem.</p>\n<p><b>Stream On Investor Discussion</b></p>\n<p>The slides during the investordiscussionat the end of Stream On were very helpful.</p>\n<p>CEO Ek says the mission guides everything they do at Spotify:</p>\n<p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4303c60b8f5981ea05099664de42cf1c\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"381\"><span>Image Source: Spotify February 2021 Stream On Investor Discussion</span></p>\n<p>When thinking about the mission, CEO Ek says we should keep their 4 pillars in mind. They are Create, Grow, Engage and Monetize. He says to keep these pillars in mind when thinking about all the Stream On announcements:</p>\n<p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/d04f00cb996e32f33ff48ba72f2f505f\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"330\"><span>Image Source: Spotify February 2021 Stream On Investor Discussion</span></p>\n<p>There are 2 interlocking flywheels and Spotify is the facilitator in the middle. On the Creator side the Owned & Exclusive [O&E] podcast portfolio is becoming more important:</p>\n<p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4ccd066e55490a8acdd51e0f0d4bfb71\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"378\"><span>Image Source: Spotify February 2021 Stream On Investor Discussion</span></p>\n<p>Spotify shows that they have come a long way since the 2008 launch now that they have 345 million monthly active users [MAUs], 155 million premium subscribers, annual revenue of €7.9 billion and a gross margin of 26%:</p>\n<p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/d0d78b9d290608d299e3230657b30488\" tg-width=\"500\" tg-height=\"510\"><span>Image Source: Spotify February 2021 Stream On Investor Discussion</span></p>\n<p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/3ff9c728e95d3cb19da3cd33bbdf0baf\" tg-width=\"500\" tg-height=\"503\"><span>Image Source: Spotify February 2021 Stream On Investor Discussion</span></p>\n<p>Spotify is already the leader for music streaming and they want to be the podcast leader as well. It can be dangerous for investors when new companies have rosy projections for the total addressable market [TAM] but we see from the slide above that Spotify is not a new company; they have proven themselves with music streaming and they have credibility with other audio ambitions:</p>\n<p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/ef1307809b7284693e1fd2bcee0b23c4\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"535\"><span>Image Source: Spotify February 2021 Stream On Investor Discussion</span></p>\n<p>This data in the TAM slides is from a number of sources including a Goldman Sachs research report. Spotify is already at about 40% market share for music streaming. They want to take share in paid audio and podcasting such that they reach a level of 1/3rd to 40% of market share in those spaces. CEO Ek says the overall audio market will be vastly different in 2030:</p>\n<p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/6fb1ab14618249fd3cb9f76345ebd534\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"682\"><span>Image Source: Spotify February 2021 Stream On Investor Discussion</span></p>\n<p>CEO Ek makes the following observations about the slide above:</p>\n<p>1. Audio is a fast growing market.</p>\n<p>2. Radio is going from a gigantic business to a smaller part of the audio space.</p>\n<p>3. Music streaming, podcasting and paid audio benefit as terrestrial radio is unbundled.</p>\n<p>He goes on to note that by 2030 music streaming should triple from $25 billion in annual revenue to $75 billion. By 2030 paid audio and podcasting should combine to be about $55 billion in annual revenue. As such, Spotify will be vying for a share of $130 billion in annual revenue. They want to have 1/3rd to 40% share so that could be $44 billion to $52 billion in annual revenue from music streaming, paid audio and podcasting. It’s a bit confusing because the slides are in $ but Spotify reports in €. Either way, the opportunity is vast. Speaking of paid audio, the Sirius XM Holdings (SIRI) 202010-Kshows free cash flow of $1.7 billion on revenue of $8 billion for a margin of over 20%!</p>\n<p>Spotify CFO Vogel shows that they expect long term revenue growth to be 20%+. He then explains why they decided to increase the upper end of the long term gross margin range from 35% to 40%. In other words, the gross margin range shifted up from 30-35% in the Investor Day slides to 30-40% in the Stream On slides. The operating margin objective is 10%+ where R&D should continue to see heavy investments but leverage should be obtained with sales/marketing and G&A:</p>\n<p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/a217d0c4cac08a9a3feabd17aea83999\" tg-width=\"438\" tg-height=\"321\"><span>Image Source: Spotify February 2021 Stream On Investor Discussion</span></p>\n<p>CFO Vogel reiterated 2021 guidance with respect to the full year:</p>\n<p>Total MAUs: 407 - 427 million</p>\n<p>Total Premium Subs: 172 - 184 million</p>\n<p>Total Revenue: €9.01 - €9.41 billion*</p>\n<p>*Assumes about 370 bps headwind due to foreign exchange</p>\n<p>Gross Margin: 23.7 - 25.7%</p>\n<p>Operating Loss: €(300) - €(200) million</p>\n<p>Showing the last slide, CFO Vogel recapped some of the large Stream On announcements:</p>\n<p>New Markets Expansion</p>\n<p>HiFi</p>\n<p>New Owned & Exclusive (“O&E”) Content</p>\n<p>New Anchor Features</p>\n<p>Spotify Audience Network</p>\n<p>Ad Studio For Podcasting</p>\n<p>SAI Expansion</p>\n<p>Sponsored Recommendation Expansion</p>\n<p>Discovery Mode Early Results</p>\n<p>The first 4 announcements above impact both consumers and creators. The New Markets Expansion means the 85 new markets will bring the global total up to 170+. President Obama and Bruce Springsteen are highlighted with the new O&E content. The New Anchor Features make it easier for WordPress bloggers to become podcasters. Aimed at creators, the last 5 announcements are the right types of tools that are needed as the world changes. Spotify Audience Network, Ad Studio For Podcasting and SAI Expansion are in the advertising category. Sponsored Recommendation Expansion and Discovery Mode Early Results are in the marketplace category.</p>\n<p>These slides left a meaningful impact on me as they show that Spotify is well positioned to be the dominant company in a growing audio world. The foundation is being laid down such that Spotify should have a substantial portion of the $130 billion TAM in 2030.</p>\n<p><b>Stream On Q&A</b></p>\n<p>CEO Ek and CFO Vogel held a helpful Q&A session following the Stream On investor discussion.</p>\n<p>CFO Vogel said they expect “significant growth” in marketplace contribution to gross profit in 2021 and we know this is accretive to gross margin. CEO Ek made encouraging statements with margins as well by saying the #1 question from artists is about things they can do to be heard while the #1 question from consumers is how they can discover more content. This double-sided coin allows Spotify to create more efficient ways for creators and consumers to meet. In forming these relationships Spotify gets compensated in a manner that is accretive to margins.</p>\n<p>Regarding the 2030 revenue opportunity, a question was asked about the potential mix between subscription and advertising. CEO Ek responded by saying advertising will increase from today’s level of 10% vs 90% subscription. Referencing the $130 billion TAM, CEO Ek stated that advertising can be between 20 and 40% of the revenue mix. He also mentioned the transactional or a la carte part.</p>\n<p>A question was asked about getting to 50 million creators. Mentioning the internationalization of audiences, CEO Ek remarked that 80% of Spotify creators have audiences outside of their home countries. He went on to talk about the New Anchor Features announcement which revealed that vloggers can now create podcasts with 1 click.</p>\n<p>Following this Q&A, it’s clear to me that Spotify will have a unique role in the future of audio as there has never been a company in a position to have 50 million artists to go along with hundreds of millions of listeners.</p>\n<p><b>Streaming Is Crucial For The Music Industry</b></p>\n<p>I believe there has been some mendacity in the past with respect to just how much the labels depend on Spotify but that seems to be changing. The 202010-Kfor Warner Music Group (WMG) shows that streaming is more important than ever for the music industry:</p>\n<p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/7f5c127e386be593a686957c01755885\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"272\"><span>Image Source: Warner Music Group 10-K</span></p>\n<p>The Warner Music Group 10-K goes on to show the importance of their relationship with Spotify. The Digital/streaming segment is prodigious and it is still growing! It was 51% of overall revenue or $2.3 billion/$4.5 billion in 2019 and 58% or $2.6 billion/$4.5 billion in 2020.</p>\n<p>The Vivendi (OTCPK:VIVEF) Full Year 2020Resultsshow the importance of streaming for their Universal Music Group subsidiary:</p>\n<p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/2219ce9b68792547ed18b325902e035a\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"349\"><span>Image Source: Vivendi Full Year 2020 Results</span></p>\n<p>The Vivendi Full Year 2020 Results show streaming and subscriptions were 46% of Universal Music Group revenue or €3.3 billion/€7.2 billion in 2019 and 51% or €3.8 billion/€7.4 billion in 2020.</p>\n<p>I’ve seen that analysts have questioned Spotify’s position with the labels but the labels themselves all say that the streaming market is growing and Spotify is the clear leader in this area.</p>\n<p><b>Independent Artists</b></p>\n<p>The Big 3 labels and Merlin are becoming a little less dominant every year as independent artists rise. The SpotifyF-1filing shows that the Big 3 labels and Merlin accounted for about 87% of music streams back in 2017. The 20-F filings and a MIDiAwriteupshow how that has changed since then:</p>\n<p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/de2e736757796fabcbd3880c10b056f4\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"360\"><span>Image Source: MIDiA</span></p>\n<p>The Big 3 labels and Merlin are dropping more noticeably as time goes on, losing 2 percentage points from 2017 to 2018, 3 points from 2018 to 2019 and 4 points from 2019 to 2020.</p>\n<p>GCAsays20,000 tracks were uploaded daily in 2018 and this went up to 40,000 daily in 2019. In the Stream On event Global Co-Head of Music Jeremy Erlich said it is now 60,000 daily! GCA shows that the number of independent artists on Spotify is growing rapidly:</p>\n<p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/351cbccd1ea0c815c1ac626adc7c0699\" tg-width=\"600\" tg-height=\"820\"><span>Image Source: GCA 4Q20 Report</span></p>\n<p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/e59977d4d1725c2e9b060afdd2f46e25\" tg-width=\"600\" tg-height=\"307\"><span>Image Source: GCA 4Q20 Report.</span></p>\n<p><i>I added red text to the GCA image above to note that Spotify now has 60K tracks updated daily and 22% of their streams are now from non-majors!</i></p>\n<p>It isn’t surprising that we see a higher percentage of independent artists each year as the idea of signing away lifetime royalties continues to be questioned more directly as time passes.</p>\n<p><b>User Growth</b></p>\n<p>Visual Capitalistshowsthat Spotify already has more than twice as many paid subs as either Apple Music (AAPL) or Amazon (AMZN):</p>\n<p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/58416f1db36b3fd8a8e3e2be84483587\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"930\"><span>Image Source: Visual Capitalist</span></p>\n<p>It isn’t just that Spotify has more paid subs than Apple and Amazon. Spotify users voraciously listen to streams and it is said that Spotify has more engagement per sub than Apple and Amazon.</p>\n<p>The Warner Music Group 10-K says that music streaming is still in the early stages of global adoption and penetration. Spotify was founded in Sweden and about 43% of the people there are paid music subs compared to 27% in the U.S., 18% in Germany and 8% in Japan. At the Stream On event Spotifyannouncedthat they are expanding to 80+ new markets:</p>\n<p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/e3b034aeab1451a814675bcc97a0c2a6\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"1445\"><span>Image Source: Spotify newsroom</span></p>\n<p>The Spotify user number that I follow closest on the 202020-Fis the premium subscriber count:</p>\n<p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/7ef9dc4c8e8f7cfc1191cb232b43d1c1\" tg-width=\"500\" tg-height=\"102\"><span>Image Source: 2020 20-F</span></p>\n<p>Their MAUs include both premium subs and ad-supported users. This overall number isn’t quite as important to me as premium subs at this time because the economics for ad-supported users aren’t great right now. I view the ad-supported service as a subsidy program that offsets the costs of new premium subs. MAUs grew from 207 million in 2018 to 271 million in 2019 and then they went up to 345 million in 2020.</p>\n<p>In the 2Q20callCEO Daniel Ek noted that they have a culture of experimentation, upping the number of A/B tests from a few hundred to thousands. He goes on to say that there is still a lot of pent-up demand for Spotify in markets around the world</p>\n<p>Apple’s aversion to advertising is a huge disadvantage in this space. I think Spotify will continue to have a large lead over Apple with respect to paid subs as Spotify can use the ad-based freemium model as a customer acquisition tool for the paid side. It isn’t a good sign for Apple that they stopped disclosing the number of paid subs.Statistashows that we needn’t worry much about competition from Apple Music in places like Brazil and India where iOS share is minimal:</p>\n<p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/2b21e19d936e3c7ddd5070ef2260bf0c\" tg-width=\"400\" tg-height=\"399\"><span>Image Source: Statista</span></p>\n<p>Amazon Music is disadvantaged in Latin America where MercadoLibre is the dominant online marketplace. Both Amazon and Apple have priorities other than audio whereas Spotify is focused in this area.</p>\n<p><b>Long Term Goal Of Revenue Growth 20%+</b></p>\n<p>Spotify revenue climbed about 29% from $5.26 billion in 2018 to $6.76 billion in 2019. It then went up over 16% in 2020 to $7.88 billion. The Y/Y growth rates for the 2018 to 2019 period and the 2019 to 2020 period are much closer when we view them through a lens that removes the foreign currency effect. In that case Y/Y growth from 2019 to 2020 slowed to 20% after being 26% from 2018 to 2019 per the 4Q20 shareholderletterand the 4Q19 shareholderletter, respectively. A red box has been added below to the Reconciliation of IFRS to Non-IFRS Results table below from the 4Q20 shareholder letter in order to emphasize the adjusted growth rate of 20%:</p>\n<p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/ef11b79ac7a694673caef8da4e19bc6d\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"307\"><span>Image Source: 4Q20 shareholder letter</span></p>\n<p>The 3Q20 letter and the 4Q20 letter say the depreciation of the USD vs. the euro was the primary driver behind the foreign currency effect.Trading Economicsshows the way the euro increased against the USD in 2020:</p>\n<p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/796592a599eeacb95a672653df4a6452\" tg-width=\"500\" tg-height=\"337\"><span>Image Source: Trading Economics</span></p>\n<p>Other factors explaining the lower revenue growth are the lower growth of premium subs, lower monthly average revenue per user [ARPU] due to things like family plans and lower monthly ARPU in some geographies. Monthly premium ARPU fell from €4.81 in 2018 to €4.72 in 2019 to €4.31 in 2020 but this is part of the market share strategy and they didn’t want to raise prices during the Covid-19 pandemic.</p>\n<p>Management explained during the Stream On event that they expect long term revenue growth to be 20%+ but their 2021 guidance appears to be below this percentage in part due to foreign exchange headwinds . I think they can get back to the 20%+ growth level starting with the 2021 to 2022 period.</p>\n<p><b>Long-Term Goal Of Gross Margin 30-40%</b></p>\n<p>Management put up a slide during the March 2018 Investor Day presentation saying they would eventually like to get to gross margins of 30-35%. Then CFO Barry McCarthy said explained the thought process:</p>\n<blockquote>\n Now if the investments we make in R&D and content improve the overall user experience, and if, as a result of building our two-sided marketplace, we come to own discovery and demand creation for users and artists, then we expect the long-term margin structure of the business to evolve along the lines summarized on this slide.\n</blockquote>\n<p>In the 2Q20callCEO Daniel Ek answered a question about promoted songs saying that promotion/marketing has overtaken distribution as the most expensive cost for labels:</p>\n<blockquote>\n So if labels instead reinvest some of the portion of the marketing spend that they use to promote market artists on this platform natively, the result should be a lot better. You should see better results for consumers because they're getting more of what they actually like. You should see better results for artists and labels as well because they're able to grow their fans a lot better at more efficiently priced -- prices than, say, other advertising marketplaces or billboards that they've traditionally spent them on. And of course, for Spotify, it means a higher gross margin business as well.\n</blockquote>\n<p>This sounds a lot to me like Amazon telling their third-party merchants that they could improve marketplace results by advertising. And what we’ve seen with respect to advertising revenue at Amazon has been mind boggling. A footnote on their 202010-Ksays the “Other” segment that went from $10.1 billion in 2018 to $21.5 billion in 2020 is primarily advertising.</p>\n<p>The 2020 20-F reminds us that Spotify is in the discovery business and this is good for the gross margin:</p>\n<blockquote>\n Spotify is more than an audio streaming service. We are in the discovery business. Every day, fans from around the world trust our brand to guide them to music and entertainment that they would never have discovered on their own. If discovery drives delight, and delight drives engagement, and engagement drives discovery, we believe Spotify wins and so do our users.\n</blockquote>\n<p>The 4Q20 Warner Music Group earningscalltalked about one of the many ways in which Spotify can increase the gross margins. Jessica Ehrlich of BofA Merrill Lynch asked about Spotify’s marketing tools:</p>\n<blockquote>\n Spotify is testing a new discovery mode, which allows artists and labels to influence the songs selected by its algorithm by receiving a lower royalty payout. How does this feature affect your marketing strategy? And how do you think about the importance of marketing within that ecosystem or in DSPs in general versus marketing or promoting music through other channels?\n</blockquote>\n<p>Warner CEO Stephen Cooper answered by saying they experiment with marketing tools regularly. I believe there are many ways that Spotify can provide value in this area over the years and it’s hard to envision a future where this doesn’t work well for all parties involved.</p>\n<p>Ben Swinburne asked about Spotify raising the high end of their gross margin guidance to 40% at the March 2021 Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and TelecomConference. CFO Paul Vogel responded:</p>\n<blockquote>\n I mean for us, it's just the optionality of all the new initiatives and all the investments that we see over the next 3 to 5 years. And so if you think about the opportunity in podcast, and when you think about the opportunities in ad network, right? A couple of years ago, there really wasn't as much of a thought around us being and creating an advertising network. And now we think that's, obviously, something we're developing and building. And we think if it goes really well, there could be upside there to margins in initiatives like that. And there's obviously other things we're working on that we didn't even announce at Stream On in terms of products or innovations.\n</blockquote>\n<p>We haven’t even seen all the ways in which the gross margin will rise as the audio space continues to evolve.</p>\n<p><b>Long-Term Goal Of Operating Margin 10+%</b></p>\n<p>I don’t expect them to get to this level anytime soon given what then CFO Barry McCarthy said at the March 2018 Investor Day:</p>\n<blockquote>\n Growth, of course, has pressured our operating margins. And you should expect us to continue to invest in growth at the expense of operating profit, because we believe growth increases our enterprise value.\n</blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n Now in some respects, this reminds me of my first 10 years at Netflix, when we transitioned from operating with a negative gross margin to operating with a 35% gross margin as the business scaled. And the point here is that scale can be a great enabler of margin expansion, particularly if you couple it with data insights to drive a better user interface, add a better content experience, and in the process come to own demand creation and the margin that comes with owning demand creation.\n</blockquote>\n<p>In the 4Q20 earningscalla question from Steven Cahall pointed out that the implied 2021 incremental operating margin is about 3%. His question was about meaningful margin expansion in the future. CFO Vogel answered by saying R&D will continue to see heavy investment such that there won’t be much leveraging there. He went on to say that sales and marketing along with G&A could see some leverage:</p>\n<blockquote>\n And then when you look at sort of sales and marketing, I think there are areas over time that we could be more efficient there, potentially on the marketing side we'll see them and also on the sales side as we add more automation into the ecosystem and more self-serve products and those types of things.\n</blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n And in the G&A side as well. I mean it's a heavy lift first to go and be prepared to be a public company. And then as you continue to launch more and more markets, what you need to do from an infrastructure standpoint, obviously, there's some build-out there. But you can imagine over time, once we're in more markets where we want to be and where it is sufficient scale, you'll start to see leverage on the G&A side as well.\n</blockquote>\n<p>CEO Ek chimed in during the 4Q20 call as well noting that it is expensive to go after billions of consumers around the world in the audio category. They also have to invest in tools for millions of creators and this hurts the operating margin:</p>\n<blockquote>\n And these are multiyear investments. Plus, of course, adding to the fact that we're producing our own content. We're pursuing exclusives. We're going into categories. We're going into new markets. Those are all the things that you're seeing in the P&L coming through that we are doing.\n</blockquote>\n<p>CEO Ek went on to say that at a mature state, the business will look very different than the growth stage that they’re investing behind now.</p>\n<p>I try not to anchor on the current economics and I believe they can eventually get to 12 to 15% operating margins well into the future after the audio space has changed dramatically.</p>\n<p><b>Valuation</b></p>\n<p>The midpoint of 2021 revenue guidance is 9.2 billion euros as there are foreign exchange headwinds. Management is aiming for 20%+ revenue growth in the long run. Starting with a base of 9.2 billion euros in 2021, if they can grow revenue at 20% then revenue should be close to 20 billion euros by 2025.</p>\n<p>If Spotify can have a steady-state operating margin of 12 to 15% by that time then operating earnings should be about 2.4 to 3 billion euros and if the company is valued at 25x that amount then we’re talking about a value of around 60 to 75 euros. Right now 1 euro equals $1.21 and if the exchange rate is similar in 2025 then this range will be equivalent to $73 to $91 billion. It’s hard to say what that is worth today but if it is around $55 billion then the 5 year CAGR range could be 6 to 11%.</p>\n<p>The enterprise value is fairly close to the market cap. The 2020 20-F shows 190,212,847 shares and the March 5th share price was $274.98 implying a market cap of $52.3 billion. I think the stock is reasonably priced as the $52.3 billion market cap is less than the $55 billion mentioned above.</p>","source":"seekingalpha","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Spotify Is Rocking And Rolling</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nSpotify Is Rocking And Rolling\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-03-09 19:25 GMT+8 <a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4412401-spotify-is-rocking-and-rolling><strong>seekingalpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>Summary\n\nThe February 2021 Stream On event explains that Spotify’s future is exciting!\nLike Amazon, Spotify focuses on growth and FCF as opposed to reported accrual earnings.\nThere are now over 60,000...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4412401-spotify-is-rocking-and-rolling\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"SPOT":"Spotify Technology S.A."},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4412401-spotify-is-rocking-and-rolling","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","article_id":"1123435119","content_text":"Summary\n\nThe February 2021 Stream On event explains that Spotify’s future is exciting!\nLike Amazon, Spotify focuses on growth and FCF as opposed to reported accrual earnings.\nThere are now over 60,000 tracks delivered to Spotify every day!\n\nIntroduction\nMy thesis is that Spotify (SPOT) is well-positioned to continue being the leader in audio as the world changes. Co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek is special. Following former CFO Barry McCarthy, current CFO Paul Vogel has big shoes to fill and I think he is up to the challenge.\nSpotify reports their financials in euros. At the time of this writing, $1 equals €0.84.\nStream On\nIt has been nearly 3 years since Spotify’s March 2018 Investor Day and it was nice to get some updates at Spotify’s February 2021 Stream Onevent.\nGlobal Co-Head of Music Jeremy Erlich noted that there are now over 60,000 tracks delivered to Spotify every day! The Spotify library contains over 70 million tracks, 4.5 billion playlists and more than 2 million podcasts per Chief R&D Officer Gustav Söderström.\nChief Content & Advertising Business Officer Dawn Ostroff said there are now over 7,500 artists at Spotify generating more than $100,000 per year. She noted that in the U.S. consumers spend about the same amount of time listening to digital audio as they do watching digital video (over 9 hours per week). She added that digital audio advertising has lagged digital video advertising and that terrestrial and satellite radio are a $30 billion ad industry without the insights of modern advertising.\nNoting that advertisers are flying blind when podcast consumption is based on downloads, she revealed that Spotify’s shift to streaming unlocks missing data. Spotify’s Ad Insertion [SAI] has become one of their most in-demand ad tools as it lets advertisers reach the right audiences and understand the impact of their ads.\nCEO Ek said there were 3 million creators on Spotify 3 years ago and by the end of 2020 it was up to 8 million! He thinks there could be as many as 50 million creators by 2025! He emphasized that Spotify has a head start in audio of more than a decade and that this advantage gives them tremendous data, insights and experiences along with unrivaled size and scale. Spotify’s head start reminds me of what Bill Mesce Jr. said about HBO’s head start over Showtime in hisInside the Rise of HBObook:\n\n It was a head start Showtime never overcame. By the late 1980s, HBO had a brand recognition level in the same league as Coca-Cola, meaning you had to have been living in a cave since 1972 not to know what HBO was. HBO had become so identified in the public mind with cable TV that many cable customers thought HBO and their cable company were the same thing!\n\n\n [Location: 1,307]\n\nThe early leader has more advantages than just brand recognition. At the March 2018Investor Daythen CFO Barry McCarthy noted that the older subscription companies have an edge over newer subscription companies because older companies have lower average churn rates such that they can beat newer companies like a drum.\nI believe these updates are very encouraging as they show that Spotify has tremendous momentum. The fact that 60,000 songs are updated daily vs. just 20,000 2 years ago shows that the music industry is changing and the old ways of doing things with the labels are fading quickly. The large number of artists and listeners is a powerful combination and no one wants to be left out of the Spotify ecosystem.\nStream On Investor Discussion\nThe slides during the investordiscussionat the end of Stream On were very helpful.\nCEO Ek says the mission guides everything they do at Spotify:\nImage Source: Spotify February 2021 Stream On Investor Discussion\nWhen thinking about the mission, CEO Ek says we should keep their 4 pillars in mind. They are Create, Grow, Engage and Monetize. He says to keep these pillars in mind when thinking about all the Stream On announcements:\nImage Source: Spotify February 2021 Stream On Investor Discussion\nThere are 2 interlocking flywheels and Spotify is the facilitator in the middle. On the Creator side the Owned & Exclusive [O&E] podcast portfolio is becoming more important:\nImage Source: Spotify February 2021 Stream On Investor Discussion\nSpotify shows that they have come a long way since the 2008 launch now that they have 345 million monthly active users [MAUs], 155 million premium subscribers, annual revenue of €7.9 billion and a gross margin of 26%:\nImage Source: Spotify February 2021 Stream On Investor Discussion\nImage Source: Spotify February 2021 Stream On Investor Discussion\nSpotify is already the leader for music streaming and they want to be the podcast leader as well. It can be dangerous for investors when new companies have rosy projections for the total addressable market [TAM] but we see from the slide above that Spotify is not a new company; they have proven themselves with music streaming and they have credibility with other audio ambitions:\nImage Source: Spotify February 2021 Stream On Investor Discussion\nThis data in the TAM slides is from a number of sources including a Goldman Sachs research report. Spotify is already at about 40% market share for music streaming. They want to take share in paid audio and podcasting such that they reach a level of 1/3rd to 40% of market share in those spaces. CEO Ek says the overall audio market will be vastly different in 2030:\nImage Source: Spotify February 2021 Stream On Investor Discussion\nCEO Ek makes the following observations about the slide above:\n1. Audio is a fast growing market.\n2. Radio is going from a gigantic business to a smaller part of the audio space.\n3. Music streaming, podcasting and paid audio benefit as terrestrial radio is unbundled.\nHe goes on to note that by 2030 music streaming should triple from $25 billion in annual revenue to $75 billion. By 2030 paid audio and podcasting should combine to be about $55 billion in annual revenue. As such, Spotify will be vying for a share of $130 billion in annual revenue. They want to have 1/3rd to 40% share so that could be $44 billion to $52 billion in annual revenue from music streaming, paid audio and podcasting. It’s a bit confusing because the slides are in $ but Spotify reports in €. Either way, the opportunity is vast. Speaking of paid audio, the Sirius XM Holdings (SIRI) 202010-Kshows free cash flow of $1.7 billion on revenue of $8 billion for a margin of over 20%!\nSpotify CFO Vogel shows that they expect long term revenue growth to be 20%+. He then explains why they decided to increase the upper end of the long term gross margin range from 35% to 40%. In other words, the gross margin range shifted up from 30-35% in the Investor Day slides to 30-40% in the Stream On slides. The operating margin objective is 10%+ where R&D should continue to see heavy investments but leverage should be obtained with sales/marketing and G&A:\nImage Source: Spotify February 2021 Stream On Investor Discussion\nCFO Vogel reiterated 2021 guidance with respect to the full year:\nTotal MAUs: 407 - 427 million\nTotal Premium Subs: 172 - 184 million\nTotal Revenue: €9.01 - €9.41 billion*\n*Assumes about 370 bps headwind due to foreign exchange\nGross Margin: 23.7 - 25.7%\nOperating Loss: €(300) - €(200) million\nShowing the last slide, CFO Vogel recapped some of the large Stream On announcements:\nNew Markets Expansion\nHiFi\nNew Owned & Exclusive (“O&E”) Content\nNew Anchor Features\nSpotify Audience Network\nAd Studio For Podcasting\nSAI Expansion\nSponsored Recommendation Expansion\nDiscovery Mode Early Results\nThe first 4 announcements above impact both consumers and creators. The New Markets Expansion means the 85 new markets will bring the global total up to 170+. President Obama and Bruce Springsteen are highlighted with the new O&E content. The New Anchor Features make it easier for WordPress bloggers to become podcasters. Aimed at creators, the last 5 announcements are the right types of tools that are needed as the world changes. Spotify Audience Network, Ad Studio For Podcasting and SAI Expansion are in the advertising category. Sponsored Recommendation Expansion and Discovery Mode Early Results are in the marketplace category.\nThese slides left a meaningful impact on me as they show that Spotify is well positioned to be the dominant company in a growing audio world. The foundation is being laid down such that Spotify should have a substantial portion of the $130 billion TAM in 2030.\nStream On Q&A\nCEO Ek and CFO Vogel held a helpful Q&A session following the Stream On investor discussion.\nCFO Vogel said they expect “significant growth” in marketplace contribution to gross profit in 2021 and we know this is accretive to gross margin. CEO Ek made encouraging statements with margins as well by saying the #1 question from artists is about things they can do to be heard while the #1 question from consumers is how they can discover more content. This double-sided coin allows Spotify to create more efficient ways for creators and consumers to meet. In forming these relationships Spotify gets compensated in a manner that is accretive to margins.\nRegarding the 2030 revenue opportunity, a question was asked about the potential mix between subscription and advertising. CEO Ek responded by saying advertising will increase from today’s level of 10% vs 90% subscription. Referencing the $130 billion TAM, CEO Ek stated that advertising can be between 20 and 40% of the revenue mix. He also mentioned the transactional or a la carte part.\nA question was asked about getting to 50 million creators. Mentioning the internationalization of audiences, CEO Ek remarked that 80% of Spotify creators have audiences outside of their home countries. He went on to talk about the New Anchor Features announcement which revealed that vloggers can now create podcasts with 1 click.\nFollowing this Q&A, it’s clear to me that Spotify will have a unique role in the future of audio as there has never been a company in a position to have 50 million artists to go along with hundreds of millions of listeners.\nStreaming Is Crucial For The Music Industry\nI believe there has been some mendacity in the past with respect to just how much the labels depend on Spotify but that seems to be changing. The 202010-Kfor Warner Music Group (WMG) shows that streaming is more important than ever for the music industry:\nImage Source: Warner Music Group 10-K\nThe Warner Music Group 10-K goes on to show the importance of their relationship with Spotify. The Digital/streaming segment is prodigious and it is still growing! It was 51% of overall revenue or $2.3 billion/$4.5 billion in 2019 and 58% or $2.6 billion/$4.5 billion in 2020.\nThe Vivendi (OTCPK:VIVEF) Full Year 2020Resultsshow the importance of streaming for their Universal Music Group subsidiary:\nImage Source: Vivendi Full Year 2020 Results\nThe Vivendi Full Year 2020 Results show streaming and subscriptions were 46% of Universal Music Group revenue or €3.3 billion/€7.2 billion in 2019 and 51% or €3.8 billion/€7.4 billion in 2020.\nI’ve seen that analysts have questioned Spotify’s position with the labels but the labels themselves all say that the streaming market is growing and Spotify is the clear leader in this area.\nIndependent Artists\nThe Big 3 labels and Merlin are becoming a little less dominant every year as independent artists rise. The SpotifyF-1filing shows that the Big 3 labels and Merlin accounted for about 87% of music streams back in 2017. The 20-F filings and a MIDiAwriteupshow how that has changed since then:\nImage Source: MIDiA\nThe Big 3 labels and Merlin are dropping more noticeably as time goes on, losing 2 percentage points from 2017 to 2018, 3 points from 2018 to 2019 and 4 points from 2019 to 2020.\nGCAsays20,000 tracks were uploaded daily in 2018 and this went up to 40,000 daily in 2019. In the Stream On event Global Co-Head of Music Jeremy Erlich said it is now 60,000 daily! GCA shows that the number of independent artists on Spotify is growing rapidly:\nImage Source: GCA 4Q20 Report\nImage Source: GCA 4Q20 Report.\nI added red text to the GCA image above to note that Spotify now has 60K tracks updated daily and 22% of their streams are now from non-majors!\nIt isn’t surprising that we see a higher percentage of independent artists each year as the idea of signing away lifetime royalties continues to be questioned more directly as time passes.\nUser Growth\nVisual Capitalistshowsthat Spotify already has more than twice as many paid subs as either Apple Music (AAPL) or Amazon (AMZN):\nImage Source: Visual Capitalist\nIt isn’t just that Spotify has more paid subs than Apple and Amazon. Spotify users voraciously listen to streams and it is said that Spotify has more engagement per sub than Apple and Amazon.\nThe Warner Music Group 10-K says that music streaming is still in the early stages of global adoption and penetration. Spotify was founded in Sweden and about 43% of the people there are paid music subs compared to 27% in the U.S., 18% in Germany and 8% in Japan. At the Stream On event Spotifyannouncedthat they are expanding to 80+ new markets:\nImage Source: Spotify newsroom\nThe Spotify user number that I follow closest on the 202020-Fis the premium subscriber count:\nImage Source: 2020 20-F\nTheir MAUs include both premium subs and ad-supported users. This overall number isn’t quite as important to me as premium subs at this time because the economics for ad-supported users aren’t great right now. I view the ad-supported service as a subsidy program that offsets the costs of new premium subs. MAUs grew from 207 million in 2018 to 271 million in 2019 and then they went up to 345 million in 2020.\nIn the 2Q20callCEO Daniel Ek noted that they have a culture of experimentation, upping the number of A/B tests from a few hundred to thousands. He goes on to say that there is still a lot of pent-up demand for Spotify in markets around the world\nApple’s aversion to advertising is a huge disadvantage in this space. I think Spotify will continue to have a large lead over Apple with respect to paid subs as Spotify can use the ad-based freemium model as a customer acquisition tool for the paid side. It isn’t a good sign for Apple that they stopped disclosing the number of paid subs.Statistashows that we needn’t worry much about competition from Apple Music in places like Brazil and India where iOS share is minimal:\nImage Source: Statista\nAmazon Music is disadvantaged in Latin America where MercadoLibre is the dominant online marketplace. Both Amazon and Apple have priorities other than audio whereas Spotify is focused in this area.\nLong Term Goal Of Revenue Growth 20%+\nSpotify revenue climbed about 29% from $5.26 billion in 2018 to $6.76 billion in 2019. It then went up over 16% in 2020 to $7.88 billion. The Y/Y growth rates for the 2018 to 2019 period and the 2019 to 2020 period are much closer when we view them through a lens that removes the foreign currency effect. In that case Y/Y growth from 2019 to 2020 slowed to 20% after being 26% from 2018 to 2019 per the 4Q20 shareholderletterand the 4Q19 shareholderletter, respectively. A red box has been added below to the Reconciliation of IFRS to Non-IFRS Results table below from the 4Q20 shareholder letter in order to emphasize the adjusted growth rate of 20%:\nImage Source: 4Q20 shareholder letter\nThe 3Q20 letter and the 4Q20 letter say the depreciation of the USD vs. the euro was the primary driver behind the foreign currency effect.Trading Economicsshows the way the euro increased against the USD in 2020:\nImage Source: Trading Economics\nOther factors explaining the lower revenue growth are the lower growth of premium subs, lower monthly average revenue per user [ARPU] due to things like family plans and lower monthly ARPU in some geographies. Monthly premium ARPU fell from €4.81 in 2018 to €4.72 in 2019 to €4.31 in 2020 but this is part of the market share strategy and they didn’t want to raise prices during the Covid-19 pandemic.\nManagement explained during the Stream On event that they expect long term revenue growth to be 20%+ but their 2021 guidance appears to be below this percentage in part due to foreign exchange headwinds . I think they can get back to the 20%+ growth level starting with the 2021 to 2022 period.\nLong-Term Goal Of Gross Margin 30-40%\nManagement put up a slide during the March 2018 Investor Day presentation saying they would eventually like to get to gross margins of 30-35%. Then CFO Barry McCarthy said explained the thought process:\n\n Now if the investments we make in R&D and content improve the overall user experience, and if, as a result of building our two-sided marketplace, we come to own discovery and demand creation for users and artists, then we expect the long-term margin structure of the business to evolve along the lines summarized on this slide.\n\nIn the 2Q20callCEO Daniel Ek answered a question about promoted songs saying that promotion/marketing has overtaken distribution as the most expensive cost for labels:\n\n So if labels instead reinvest some of the portion of the marketing spend that they use to promote market artists on this platform natively, the result should be a lot better. You should see better results for consumers because they're getting more of what they actually like. You should see better results for artists and labels as well because they're able to grow their fans a lot better at more efficiently priced -- prices than, say, other advertising marketplaces or billboards that they've traditionally spent them on. And of course, for Spotify, it means a higher gross margin business as well.\n\nThis sounds a lot to me like Amazon telling their third-party merchants that they could improve marketplace results by advertising. And what we’ve seen with respect to advertising revenue at Amazon has been mind boggling. A footnote on their 202010-Ksays the “Other” segment that went from $10.1 billion in 2018 to $21.5 billion in 2020 is primarily advertising.\nThe 2020 20-F reminds us that Spotify is in the discovery business and this is good for the gross margin:\n\n Spotify is more than an audio streaming service. We are in the discovery business. Every day, fans from around the world trust our brand to guide them to music and entertainment that they would never have discovered on their own. If discovery drives delight, and delight drives engagement, and engagement drives discovery, we believe Spotify wins and so do our users.\n\nThe 4Q20 Warner Music Group earningscalltalked about one of the many ways in which Spotify can increase the gross margins. Jessica Ehrlich of BofA Merrill Lynch asked about Spotify’s marketing tools:\n\n Spotify is testing a new discovery mode, which allows artists and labels to influence the songs selected by its algorithm by receiving a lower royalty payout. How does this feature affect your marketing strategy? And how do you think about the importance of marketing within that ecosystem or in DSPs in general versus marketing or promoting music through other channels?\n\nWarner CEO Stephen Cooper answered by saying they experiment with marketing tools regularly. I believe there are many ways that Spotify can provide value in this area over the years and it’s hard to envision a future where this doesn’t work well for all parties involved.\nBen Swinburne asked about Spotify raising the high end of their gross margin guidance to 40% at the March 2021 Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and TelecomConference. CFO Paul Vogel responded:\n\n I mean for us, it's just the optionality of all the new initiatives and all the investments that we see over the next 3 to 5 years. And so if you think about the opportunity in podcast, and when you think about the opportunities in ad network, right? A couple of years ago, there really wasn't as much of a thought around us being and creating an advertising network. And now we think that's, obviously, something we're developing and building. And we think if it goes really well, there could be upside there to margins in initiatives like that. And there's obviously other things we're working on that we didn't even announce at Stream On in terms of products or innovations.\n\nWe haven’t even seen all the ways in which the gross margin will rise as the audio space continues to evolve.\nLong-Term Goal Of Operating Margin 10+%\nI don’t expect them to get to this level anytime soon given what then CFO Barry McCarthy said at the March 2018 Investor Day:\n\n Growth, of course, has pressured our operating margins. And you should expect us to continue to invest in growth at the expense of operating profit, because we believe growth increases our enterprise value.\n\n\n Now in some respects, this reminds me of my first 10 years at Netflix, when we transitioned from operating with a negative gross margin to operating with a 35% gross margin as the business scaled. And the point here is that scale can be a great enabler of margin expansion, particularly if you couple it with data insights to drive a better user interface, add a better content experience, and in the process come to own demand creation and the margin that comes with owning demand creation.\n\nIn the 4Q20 earningscalla question from Steven Cahall pointed out that the implied 2021 incremental operating margin is about 3%. His question was about meaningful margin expansion in the future. CFO Vogel answered by saying R&D will continue to see heavy investment such that there won’t be much leveraging there. He went on to say that sales and marketing along with G&A could see some leverage:\n\n And then when you look at sort of sales and marketing, I think there are areas over time that we could be more efficient there, potentially on the marketing side we'll see them and also on the sales side as we add more automation into the ecosystem and more self-serve products and those types of things.\n\n\n And in the G&A side as well. I mean it's a heavy lift first to go and be prepared to be a public company. And then as you continue to launch more and more markets, what you need to do from an infrastructure standpoint, obviously, there's some build-out there. But you can imagine over time, once we're in more markets where we want to be and where it is sufficient scale, you'll start to see leverage on the G&A side as well.\n\nCEO Ek chimed in during the 4Q20 call as well noting that it is expensive to go after billions of consumers around the world in the audio category. They also have to invest in tools for millions of creators and this hurts the operating margin:\n\n And these are multiyear investments. Plus, of course, adding to the fact that we're producing our own content. We're pursuing exclusives. We're going into categories. We're going into new markets. Those are all the things that you're seeing in the P&L coming through that we are doing.\n\nCEO Ek went on to say that at a mature state, the business will look very different than the growth stage that they’re investing behind now.\nI try not to anchor on the current economics and I believe they can eventually get to 12 to 15% operating margins well into the future after the audio space has changed dramatically.\nValuation\nThe midpoint of 2021 revenue guidance is 9.2 billion euros as there are foreign exchange headwinds. Management is aiming for 20%+ revenue growth in the long run. Starting with a base of 9.2 billion euros in 2021, if they can grow revenue at 20% then revenue should be close to 20 billion euros by 2025.\nIf Spotify can have a steady-state operating margin of 12 to 15% by that time then operating earnings should be about 2.4 to 3 billion euros and if the company is valued at 25x that amount then we’re talking about a value of around 60 to 75 euros. Right now 1 euro equals $1.21 and if the exchange rate is similar in 2025 then this range will be equivalent to $73 to $91 billion. It’s hard to say what that is worth today but if it is around $55 billion then the 5 year CAGR range could be 6 to 11%.\nThe enterprise value is fairly close to the market cap. The 2020 20-F shows 190,212,847 shares and the March 5th share price was $274.98 implying a market cap of $52.3 billion. I think the stock is reasonably priced as the $52.3 billion market cap is less than the $55 billion mentioned above.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":269,"commentLimit":10,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"symbols":[],"verified":2,"subType":0,"readableState":1,"langContent":"EN","currentLanguage":"EN","warmUpFlag":false,"orderFlag":false,"shareable":true,"causeOfNotShareable":"","featuresForAnalytics":[],"commentAndTweetFlag":false,"andRepostAutoSelectedFlag":false,"upFlag":false,"length":2,"xxTargetLangEnum":"ORIG"},"commentList":[],"isCommentEnd":true,"isTiger":false,"isWeiXinMini":false,"url":"/m/post/323042345"}
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