- Investors love Spotify (NYSE:SPOT). It checks all the boxes: fast-growing, youth-focused, cloud-operated, subscription-based, passionate CEO... And Spotify is investing heavily in podcasting, where U.S. revenues are expected to more than double from 2017-2020 to more than $600M.
- But at $25B, Barron's notes that its valuation exceeds the annual revenue of the entire global recorded-music industry, meaning bulls are betting on SPOT being the next Netflix and "outmaneuvers all the tech giants."
- Concerns include: fierce competition from competitors such as Apple, Google, and Amazon; pushback from artists who complain about how little they get from the deal; some labels who invested in Spotify have sold some or all of their stakes and are not going to cave-in in future negotiations the way they did in 2016-2018.