Spotify (SPOT) Stock Jumps Over 6% after Podcasting Deal with Kim Kardashian West

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by Teuta Franjkovic · 3 min read
Spotify (SPOT) Stock Jumps Over 6% after Podcasting Deal with Kim Kardashian West
Photo: Kim Kardashian West / Instagram

Spotify shares were up more than 12% in Thursday trading amid optimism for a series of podcast deals. Today SPOT stock is up as well.

Shares of the music streaming giant Spotify Technology SA (NYSE: SPOT) jumped 7.07% to $240.60 at the open on Friday after Rosenblatt Securities hiked its price target on the company to $275 per share from $190 a share. At the time of writing, Spotify stock is trading at $240.72 (+6.83%).

The company also raised its fiscal 2021 revenue forecast for Spotify to $10.46 billion from $10.17 billion as the company lands exclusive podcast deals with Joe Rogan and Kim Kardashian.

“We not only see attractive monetization potential from these exclusives, we envision future leverage to premium subscription pricing and label negotiations,” said Rosenblatt.

On Thursday in the trading session, it reached an all-time high of 229.54 while on Wednesday, Spotify stock finally went through its psychological border of 198.99, the record that was reached in July 2018, three months after its initial public offering.

Also, let’s not forget that on Thursday, the company announced a multiyear partnership with Warner Bros. and DC in order to produce and distribute original podcasts exclusively on Spotify.

Podcasts as Leading Category

Podcasting has been pretty much of a deal for Spotify that has been investing a lot in during the last two years. It sees spoken-word entertainment as a new way to make sure its service is different and in order to improve its advantage.

For example, The Rogan podcast is one of the most popular podcasts nowadays.

Rivals such as Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN) also are trying to spread their influence in the podcast market.

Spotify stock has an IBD Relative Strength Rating of 89, according to the IBD Stock Checkup tool. That means it has outperformed 89% of stocks over the past 12 months.

Spotify stock was added to IBD’s SwingTrader stock list on Wednesday.

Based in Stockholm, Spotify started with its work back in 2008 at a time when music fans were actually buying and paying to download individual songs and albums. Spotify then went with the idea that music lovers could pay a flat monthly subscription fee in order to access to a huge library of content.

Spotify is currently among the biggest in the industry with 130 million paying subscribers worldwide, as of March 31. It also has 163 million users of its advertising-supported service tier. On a year-over-year basis, premium subscriptions rose 31% in the first quarter, while ad-supported listeners climbed 32%.

Higher Services Demand in March that Boosts Spotify Stock

Spotify currently offers services in 79 countries and territories.

In the first quarter, Europe accounted for 39% of Spotify’s subscribers. North America went with 29% of its subscribers, followed by Latin America at 21%. The rest of the world accounted for 11%.

Spotify’s standard subscription plan is $9.99 a month for unlimited, commercial-free music streams. That’s on par with rival services. Spotify offers more than 50 million music tracks to its users.

Some analysts estimated that the company would see usage decline in the first quarter as people stayed at home during the coronavirus outbreak. Spotify usage went down during the quarter as fewer people traveled to work.

Usage of Spotify in cars and through wearable devices fell in the March quarter indeed. However, the streaming audio through TVs and game consoles grew materially. The service also saw higher listening of instrumental and “lounge” music categories, possibly to help people relax.

“Listening time around activities like cooking, doing chores, family time, and relaxing at home have each been up double digits over the past few weeks,” Spotify said in an April 29 letter to shareholders.

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