Earnings Reports Forecast: Subscription Gains, Ad Market Weakness & Taylor Swift’s Continued Power

It’s earnings season once again, with Spotify the first music company set to report second-quarter earnings on July 23. Which is fitting — not only is the Swedish streaming giant the most valuable publicly traded music company by market capitalization at $60.4 billion, it’s also an important bellwether for much of the music business. 

Music subscriptions will continue to be the driving force for Spotify, other streaming companies, record labels and music publishers. Subscriber gains mean more money flowing through to creators and rights owners, while rising prices are benefitting streaming services and could flow down to creators and rights owners, too — although analysts have mixed opinions on whether price increases have those downstream benefits or simply pad streaming companies’ bottom lines.  

Another giant of the music business, Universal Music Group, is up next, with its earnings slated to drop the day after Spotify’s (July 24). Believe and SiriusXM earnings are due the following week (both Aug. 1), while Warner Music Group is set for the week after (Aug. 8). Follow Billboard‘s list of upcoming industry events for more earnings release dates once they’re announced.

On the touring front, for all the hullabaloo about weakened consumer demand and canceled tours and festivals, the live music market is likely to have produced another banner quarter. While everyone’s eyes will be on Live Nation to gauge the health of the business, the concert giant has yet to announce its earnings release date; CTS Eventim, which will report earnings on Aug. 22, is the only promoter to have announced so far.  

Here’s what to expect in the upcoming slew of earnings reports. 

Subscription gains — but without churn? 

The recorded music market is having its cake and eating it, too: subscription prices are increasing, and customers don’t appear to be leaving in droves. Music subscription services are benefiting from price increases — namely Spotify in 2023, with some additional price hikes in 2024 — with little churn. Higher prices and continued subscriber growth will lead to gains in total revenue and average revenue per user (ARPU); Spotify expected 245 million subscribers at the end of June, which would be 6 million net additions in the quarter and a whopping 25 million greater than the 220 million subscribers it had on June 30, 2023. Watch out for any indications that higher prices negatively affected Spotify’s churn rate, however — although the company does not release specific churn data, it will likely warn investors if subscriber losses were greater than expected and are headed in the wrong direction. So far, however, any consumer complaints have been more bark than bite. In another good sign, streaming activity has been healthy, too. U.S. audio streams — by count, not by dollar value — were up 8.1% in the second quarter, according to Luminate. 

Payoffs from price increases and cost-cutting 

Spotify expects to have operating income of 250 million euros ($273 million) in the second quarter, which would be a nearly 500-million-euro ($545 million) improvement over the 247-million-euro operating loss it saw in the second quarter of 2023. If attained, that big shift from loss to profitcould be chalked up to r Spotify’s decisions in 2023 to raise prices and drastically cut back on its headcount (including a 17% workforce reduction in December). Those moves quickly produced benefits: Gross margin increased to 27.6% in the first quarter of 2024, up from 26.7% in the fourth quarter of 2023 and 25.2% in the first quarter of 2023. The reduced expenses from layoffs also helped operating margin improve to 4.6% in the first quarter — a big gain from the -2% and -5.1% margins it saw in the fourth and first quarters of 2023, respectively. Additionally, Spotify’s second-quarter guidance of 3.8 billion euros ($4.1 billion) of total revenue would be a 19.6% improvement from the prior-year period revenue of 3.18 billion euros ($3.47 billion). ARPU also increased 7% in the first quarter and is likely to improve again in the second quarter.  

More advertising weakness 

Music subscription services chose a good time to raise prices. Weak advertising revenues have been a recurring theme since music and tech companies began warning investors in 2022, and continued unsteadiness in the advertising market will impact ad-supported revenues for streaming companies, record labels and music publishers.  On July 1, Guggenheim lowered its estimate for Universal Music Group’s recorded music ad-supported streaming growth to 10.6% from 11.1% “to better reflect more challenging comparisons” against the prior quarter, as Guggenheim analysts wrote in an investor note. However, that revision was still above the first-quarter estimate of 10.3% due to UMG’s renewal of a licensing agreement with TikTok in May.  

Continued strong demand for live music 

For all that has been written about fans’ lessened appetites for live music, public companies appear to be in stable conditions. In its first-quarter earnings report in May, Live Nation said that through mid-April, the percentage of large shows booked was up double-digits while concert margins had improved, too. “We are seeing no weakness,” said president/CFO Joe Berchtold, adding that artists who toured in both 2023 and 2024 are seeing better sell-through this year. And with fewer stadium shows in 2024 than 2023, Live Nation will have more concerts in the more profitable arenas and amphitheaters that it owns or operates. Analysts are still bullish on Live Nation in the wake of the Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit against the company filed in May: As of this week, 18 analysts have “buy” recommendations on Live Nation, four have “hold” recommendations and only one has a “sell” on the stock. CTS Eventim expects another solid year, too. In April, the German promoter and ticketing company reiterated comments contained in its 2023 annual report that predicted “further moderate sales growth” in 2024.   

The Taylor Swift Effect 

UMG’s financials will get a boost from Taylor Swift’s latest album, The Tortured Poets Department. Released on April 17 through UMG’s Republic Records, Tortured Poets has remained at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart for 11 consecutive weeks since its April 19 release, with sales boosted in subsequent weeks by additional variants that helped it maintain chart position. In the most recent chart week, for example, two CD versions of the album that fans initially ordered through Swift’s webstore in early June were shipped. In all, Swift’s latest album topped the Billboard 200 for 9 of the second quarter’s 13 weeks and sold 2.4 million units in the U.S., with about 2 million of those coming from CD and LP sales, according to Luminate. That led Republic Records’ U.S. market share to reach an industry-leading 15.72%, up from 12.42% in the first quarter – greater than Warner Music Group. UMG’s total market share in the quarter was 36.37%, up from 34.48% in the prior-year quarter and well ahead of its 33.9% share in the first quarter of 2024.  

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