It’s been a roller coaster of a ride. Spotify shares opened at US$165.90 ($214) on the day of its direct public listing on Nasdaq six and a half years ago. This past week, the music streamer’s shares touched a new all-time high of US$389 even though it does not make artificial intelligence chips or, indeed, has anything to do with training or inference of large language models that most growth investors are rooting for. Spotify shares have doubled this year and are up more than 470% from their lows of November 2022 when the stock traded around US$68. In comparison, software supremo Microsoft shares are up 68%, search giant Google’s parent Alphabet shares are up 69% and iPhone maker Apple shares are up 51% over the same 23-month period.
Three or four mornings every week, I am on a treadmill or a stationary bike in my condominium’s gym, with music from Spotify or occasionally Apple Music streaming into my AirPods.
I am a premium subscriber of Spotify and I get Apple Music through my subscription of the Apple One bundle that includes News, AppleTV+ and Fitness Plus. Like the video streaming app Netflix, Spotify these days is almost like a utility for most people. Long-time readers of my Tech column might recall I wrote about Spotify’s unique direct public listing back in April 2018. Back then, it was a struggling music streamer with little or no visibility on profits. Now, it is a profitable music behemoth. In the last quarter, net profits surged to EUR274 million ($391.4 billion).
