All over the world, music is important to people. Billions of dollars are spent on listening and making music and in gatherings around the world, they are much nicer if there is music being played. When the world turns to listening to music, one company is at the head of the list – Spotify, but that does not make them profitable.

In an article from the New York Times News Service, Spotify whose headquarters are in Stockholm, Sweden is laying off another 1500 people or 17% of their staff. This would be the 3rd layoff this year and CEO Daniel Ek said this should right size the company. Mr. Ek said despite our efforts to reduce the size of the company, our cost structure for where we need to be is still too big.

Despite being the largest music-streaming service, Spotify has struggled to profitable primary because of the terms of licensing deals it has with record labels and music publishers.

The company bought podcaster Gimlet for $230 million in 2019 and Ringer for $200 million. The company also bought audiobooks.

The company has 226 million subscribers and recently raised prices for subscriptions in 50 companies. The company has 360 monthly active users whose accounts are supported by advertising. This approach generates less revenue at a lower profit margin for the company.

The good news for an investor, the company’s stock has more than doubled this year.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, within the financial press are details about public companies. There are multitude of reasons to invest in a company, but it is important to know something about the company or doing your homework. Public companies have to give some information about, and it is up to you as an investor to determine what to do with it. As you do your homework, you can determine whether you are a consumer of the product or investor.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.