Spotify announces the cut of 200 positions in podcasts

The world's number one audio platform, the Swedish group Spotify, announced on Monday the loss of 200 positions in its podcast activities, or 2% of its total workforce. Less than six months after a first cut of 600 job cuts, the streaming platform said it had started “the next phase” of its “podcast strategy”, after heavy investments in recent years. Spotify has taken the “difficult but necessary decision” to cut the workforce of its podcast business by around 200 people, the New York-listed group said in a statement. The historic leader in legal music streaming, the Swedish platform has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in podcasting in recent years, also becoming number one in the world.

The profitability of this niche has yet to be demonstrated, according to analysts. At the end of January, the audio platform had already announced the elimination of 6% of its workforce to reduce its costs. Its managing director, Daniel Ek, had then conceded that he had been too ambitious "by investing faster than (the) growth in turnover" of the group. While Spotify has been profitable from time to time, the Stockholm-born group has been steadily posting losses for several years, despite skyrocketing subscriber growth and a lead over rivals like Apple Music.

At the end of the first quarter, Spotify hit a new high of 515 million active users, up 22% year-on-year. Around 2:30 p.m. GMT on Wall Street, Spotify shares gained 2.70% to $115.83