MO’ MONEY, MO’ PROBLEMS FOR SPOTIFY: Since Spotify isn’t a public company there’s no way to get fully transparent look at their books. But there are some estimated financials from the first half of 2017 floating around the industry right now, as reported in the attached Inside Radio link. The headline is that Spotify took in an estimated $2.25B during 1H’17, which is a 70% increase over 2016. The other screamer stat is that operating losses from the first half of the year are estimated at around $200M, with a staggering 85% of Spotify’s business expenses going to pay for music royalties. So what does this all mean? Spotify continues to pursue a go for broke strategy of driving as many new subscribers and top line revenue as possible regardless of the bottom line, in hopes of going public at a valuation that reflects its high growth. But as the article points out, the clock is ticking. Over the last three years Spotify has lost roughly $1B, and has no reasonable way to raise new capital. (Keep in mind their plan to Direct List on the NYSE won’t generate any new money for them.) So Spotify’s entire plan hinges on being able to control royalty costs by pushing even more of their “freemium” listeners into subscriptions before they run out of cash. So basically Spootfy’s revenue growth is the worst good news you can have in business.
THE POWER OF “GAFA” IN ITS PRIME: Over the weekend I came across an interesting read in the attached blog post from Benedict Evans, who’s a Silicon Valley VC. Mr. Evans ran a fascinating analysis on the power currently yielded by GAFA (Google/Apple/Facebook/Amazon) through their annual revenue, employee count, etc.. Then he compares their rev to the tech titans from one generation ago, which he refers to as Wintel (Microsoft – aka Windows, and Intel). The difference in scale illustrated in the graph below is astounding. If you compare each group in their “period of dominance” GAFA has 10x more revenue compared to the rest of the tech industry while Wintel had a 3x lead during it’s heyday. Mr. Evans’ theory for this change has to do with diversification. Today’s digital powerhouses are so much more than a software suite or a microprocessor chip company. They’re consumer electronic devices, data storage farms, media sales, retail sales, content subscriptions, etc, etc.. This change is a direct reflection of how many more ways tech is integrated in our lives today than it was just 15-20 years ago. Makes you wonder what the next generation of tech dominance could look like.
TAKE IT FROM LeBRON, CHEAP IS A GOOD THING: LeBron James is a billionaire and one of the most powerful celebrities on planet earth. So you’d naturally assume he pays for whatever he wants when he wants it. But it turns out LeBron is a little more frugal than that. In the attached NBA.com link, King James is outed by teammate and buddy Dwayne Wade for being super stingy with his money. And sure enough it’s true. Straight from LeBron’s mouth . . . “”No. I’m not doing that. I’m not turning on data roaming. I’m not buying no apps. I still got Pandora with commercials.” While this is amusing to hear from a worldwide celebrity, there’s a nuanced point to his comment account Pandora. While the music streamer does play commercials on the free tier of service, the number of ads played and the way they’re served is so nominal that it doesn’t negatively affect the listening experience. Of course LeBron James could pony up $5 or $10 a month for one of Pandora’s ad free tiers, but in his eyes that’s wasted money because the service is just fine the way it is. And if it’s good for a guy whose net worth is more iHeart Media and Cumulus Broadcasting combined, then it’s good for the rest of us too!
Have a great Monday guys!