STREAMING PLATFORM SPOTIFY ON THETHRESHOLD OF PROFITABILITY

Sažetak

The streaming platform Spotify has become the largest
music platform globally by number of subscribers and has played a
transformative role in the digitalization of the music industry. This
paper investigates Spotify’s financial trajectory over the past seven
years, examining its journey toward profitability in the context of the
platform economy. Specifically, the study addresses three research
questions: the overall financial success of the platform, the growth
trend in user numbers, and the evolution of share prices. The methodology
includes financial trend regression analysis and ANOVA to
explore the relationship between operational metrics and stock performance.
Data were drawn from Spotify’s annual reports and public
databases. The findings indicate that Spotify is entering a period of
financial stability, with a positive net income achieved for the first
time in 2024. These results have practical implications for understanding
monetization strategies in digital platforms and theoretical significance
in relation to platform economics and disruptive innovation.