Spotify has more than 500 million listeners, but continues to lose money 17:18 in Economy Spotify is struggling to become a profitable company. Despite more paying users, the streaming giant is still writing deep red numbers.

Spotify is struggling to become a profitable company. Despite more paying users and higher ad revenue, the streaming giant is still writing deep red numbers. In the first quarter of this year, the net loss amounted to 225 million euros, the Swedish technology company announced today.

Spotify again expects a loss of 129 million for the second quarter. Since Spotify went public in early 2018, it has only managed to make a profit for four quarters. The last time was 2.5 years ago. At that time, the company had a third less active users with 381 million than the 515 million in the past quarter.

Dismissed

Spotify blames the current loss on higher costs, especially in salaries and taxes. But at the same time, the company also dug deep into its pockets for severance payments. In January, the company listed on the New York stock exchange announced that it would cut 6 percent of the number of jobs with 600 layoffs.

Like many tech companies, Spotify has also suffered from disappointing growth after the end of the corona period, in which streaming services grew explosively. In addition, more and more artists and record companies are dissatisfied with the fees they receive through Spotify.

At the beginning of this year, analysts still expected the streaming giant to raise subscription prices. However, Spotify did not report anything about this in its quarterly figures today.