The world's number one audio platformer, the Swedish group Spotify, announced Monday the elimination of 200 positions in its podcast business, or 2% of its total workforce. Less than six months after a first cut of 600 job cuts, the streaming platform said it had begun "the next phase" of its "podcast strategy", after heavy investments in recent years. Spotify has made "the difficult but necessary decision" to reduce the workforce of its podcast business by about 200 people, the New York-listed group said in a statement. Historical leader in legal music streaming, the Swedish platform has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in podcasts in recent years, becoming number one worldwide.
Losses for several years
The profitability of this niche has yet to be demonstrated, according to analysts. At the end of January, the audio platform had already announced the elimination of 6% of its workforce to reduce its costs. Its chief executive, Daniel Ek, had then conceded that he had been too ambitious "by investing faster than (the) growth of turnover" of the group. If Spotify has been punctually profitable, the group born in Stockholm has regularly suffered losses for several years, despite a meteoric growth in the number of its subscribers and a lead over its competitors such as Apple Music.
At the end of the first quarter, Spotify reached a new high of 515 million active users, up 22% year-on-year. Around 14:30 GMT on Wall Street, Spotify shares gained 2.70%, to $ 115.83