Spotify expects muted growth for the upcoming quarter owing to the Joe Rogan mess

Spotify closed out the last quarter of 2021 within expectation. The Stockholm, Sweden-based company expected its music streaming service to have 177-181 million paying subscribers, and 400-407 million monthly active users, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter.

The company closed the quarter with 180 million paid subscribers and 406 million monthly active listeners.

According to a recent Music subscriber market shares report from Midia, Spotify takes the top slot of market share with 31 percent. Apple Music sits in second with 15 percent, and Amazon Music is at 13 percent. YouTube Music is at eight percent, and Deezer holds onto just two percent of the market.

While Spotify remains the industry leader, it has lost 2 percent of its market share since 2020. This isn’t likely to make a significant difference in the long run, but it does show that Spotify may face serious competition in the coming years.

Further, the company itself is expecting muted growth of up to 183 million paying subscribers for the coming quarter, owing to the recent Joe Rogan debacle that saw multiple artists, including Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, India Arie, Graham Nash, Nils Lofgren, requesting the removal of their music from the streaming service, quoting that the service doesn’t curb COVID-19 misinformation originating from the UFC commentator’s podcast.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek stated during the company’s earnings call that it was “too early to know” how many users would be cancelling their subscriptions because of Joe Rogan. While Rogan “has a massive audience,” he must “abide” by Spotify’s policies, added Ek.

Following the fiasco, Rogan uploaded a video on his Instagram titled “My thoughts on the latest controversy with @spotify.” Check it out below:

Since then, in an effort to smooth out the situation, Spotify has implemented a new tag to help viewers understand that the information within some of the podcasts streamed through the platform may be untrue. Spotify also reworked its platform rules to make it easier to ban content that asserts that COVID, AIDS, or any other life-threatening illness are hoaxes.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter