Spotify Technology SA (SPOT) 2021 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon, and thank you for standing by. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Spotify's Fourth Quarter 2021 Earnings Call and Webcast. I would now like to turn the call over to Bryan Goldberg, Head of Investor Relations. You may begin your conference.

下午好，感謝您的支持。在這個時候，我想歡迎大家參加 Spotify 的 2021 年第四季度財報電話會議和網絡直播。我現在想將電話轉給投資者關係主管 Bryan Goldberg。你可以開始你的會議了。

Great. Thanks, and welcome to Spotify's Fourth Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call and apologize for the slight delay, we were having a technical issue. Joining us today will be Daniel Ek, our CEO; and Paul Vogel, our CFO. We will start with opening comments from Daniel and Paul. And afterwards, we'll be happy to answer your questions. .

偉大的。謝謝，歡迎參加 Spotify 的 2021 年第四季度收益電話會議，並對稍有延遲表示歉意，我們遇到了技術問題。今天加入我們的將是我們的首席執行官 Daniel Ek；和我們的首席財務官 Paul Vogel。我們將從丹尼爾和保羅的開場白開始。之後，我們將很樂意回答您的問題。 .

Questions can be submitted by going to slido.com, S-L-I-D-O .com and using the code #SpotifyEarnings4Q -- excuse me, #SpotifyEarningsQ421. Analysts can ask questions directly into Slido, and all participants can then vote on the questions they find the most relevant. (Operator Instructions)

可以通過訪問 slido.com、S-L-I-D-O .com 並使用代碼#SpotifyEarnings4Q 提交問題——對不起，#SpotifyEarningsQ421。分析師可以直接向 Slido 提問，然後所有參與者都可以對他們認為最相關的問題進行投票。 （操作員說明）

Before we begin, let me quickly cover the safe harbor. During this call, we'll be making certain forward-looking statements, including projections or estimates about the future performance of the company. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could materially differ because of factors discussed on today's call, in our letter to shareholders and in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. During this call, we'll also refer to certain non-IFRS financial measures.

在我們開始之前，讓我快速覆蓋安全港。在這次電話會議中，我們將做出某些前瞻性陳述，包括對公司未來業績的預測或估計。這些陳述基於當前的預期和假設，這些預期和假設受到風險和不確定性的影響。由於今天的電話會議、我們致股東的信函和提交給美國證券交易委員會的文件中討論的因素，實際結果可能存在重大差異。在本次電話會議中，我們還將參考某些非 IFRS 財務指標。

Reconciliations between our IFRS and non-IFRS financial measures can be found in our letter to shareholders in the Financials section of our Investor Relations website and also furnished today on Form 6-K.

我們的 IFRS 和非 IFRS 財務措施之間的調節可以在我們的投資者關係網站財務部分的致股東信中找到，並且今天也在表格 6-K 中提供。

And with that, I'll turn it over to Daniel.

有了這個，我會把它交給丹尼爾。

All right. Hi, everyone and thanks for joining us. Obviously, it's been a few notable days here at Spotify. When we entered into the podcast space in 2019 with the intent to help modernize and grow this space for all type of creators, we assumed it would challenge and test our teams in new ways. And there's no doubt that the last several weeks have presented a number of learning opportunities. And I hope that you had a chance to read our response that address many of the questions we've received from creators and partners and employees and the medical and scientific communities.

好的。大家好，感謝您加入我們。顯然，在 Spotify 度過了幾個值得注意的日子。當我們在 2019 年進入播客領域，旨在幫助所有類型的創作者實現這一領域的現代化和發展時，我們認為它將以新的方式挑戰和測試我們的團隊。毫無疑問，過去幾週提供了許多學習機會。我希望您有機會閱讀我們的回复，這些回复解決了我們從創作者、合作夥伴和員工以及醫學和科學界收到的許多問題。

There's still work to be done, but I'm pleased that Spotify is already implementing several first of its kind measures to help combat misinformation and provide greater transparency. We believe we have a critical role to play in supporting creator expression while balancing it with the safety of our users. And we will continue to partner with experts and invest heavily in our platform functionality teams and product capabilities to meet this evolving need head on.

還有很多工作要做，但我很高興 Spotify 已經實施了幾項首創的措施，以幫助打擊錯誤信息並提供更大的透明度。我們相信我們在支持創作者表達同時平衡用戶安全方面可以發揮關鍵作用。我們將繼續與專家合作，並大力投資於我們的平台功能團隊和產品能力，以滿足這種不斷變化的需求。

Moving on to our results. 2021 was an eventful for Spotify and the world in general. Throughout the pandemic, business have seen an enormous disruption in consumer behavior, causing demand curves to shift. And Spotify, of course, has been no exception to this. In our case, these shifts mostly play to our advantage in 2020. But we did see some headwinds in the first half of 2021.

繼續我們的結果。 2021 年對於 Spotify 和整個世界來說都是多事之秋。在整個大流行期間，企業已經看到消費者行為的巨大破壞，導致需求曲線發生變化。當然，Spotify 也不例外。就我們而言，這些轉變在 2020 年主要發揮了我們的優勢。但我們確實在 2021 年上半年看到了一些不利因素。

And by the end of Q2, we saw reversal back to positive momentum. And this trend continued throughout Q3 and Q4. Historically, Q4 has been our biggest quarter and 2021 was no exception. In fact, Q4 was our largest quarter of MAU growth in Spotify's history. It's a significant MEU driver and -- a significant MAU driver was our seventh annual Wrapped campaign, which was our most successful to date.

到第二季度末，我們看到逆轉回到積極勢頭。這種趨勢在整個第三季度和第四季度都在持續。從歷史上看，第四季度是我們最大的季度，2021 年也不例外。事實上，第四季度是我們在 Spotify 歷史上 MAU 增長最大的一個季度。這是一個重要的 MEU 驅動程序，並且 - 一個重要的 MAU 驅動程序是我們的第七次年度 Wrapped 活動，這是我們迄今為止最成功的活動。

With 120 million users, we saw unprecedented engagement up 29% year-over-year, with the highest levels coming from the Gen Z audience. And on launch day, Wrapped was the #1 worldwide trending topic on both Twitter and TikTok proving that it's more of a cultural phenomenon than ever before.

憑藉 1.2 億用戶，我們看到前所未有的參與度同比增長 29%，其中最高水平來自 Z 世代受眾。在發布當天，Wrapped 是 Twitter 和 TikTok 上排名第一的全球熱門話題，這證明它比以往任何時候都更像是一種文化現象。

Ads, well, it continued its remarkable growth trajectory turning in 40% growth year-over-year. Advertising is showing more proof points of being the second key revenue driver for the overall business, climbing to a record 15% of our total revenues this quarter. And while the ad business is more prone to seasonal blips, I see this momentum continuing in 2020 and beyond. And as a result of this strong performance, we will continue to test different windowing strategies for our exclusive podcast partnerships to get the advantage of that broader audience reach.

廣告，嗯，它繼續其驚人的增長軌跡，同比增長 40%。廣告顯示出更多證據表明它是整個業務的第二大主要收入驅動因素，本季度占我們總收入的 15% 達到創紀錄的 15%。雖然廣告業務更容易出現季節性波動，但我認為這種勢頭將在 2020 年及以後繼續存在。由於這種強勁的表現，我們將繼續為我們的獨家播客合作夥伴測試不同的窗口策略，以利用更廣泛的受眾範圍。

Q4 also saw strong performance across podcast metrics, and we've amassed highly engaged audience that is listening more than ever. And last quarter, we confirmed that Spotify had become the #1 podcast platform U.S. listeners used the most, and we continue to see meaningful market share gains. So overall, I'm feeling very good about 2022.

第四季度的播客指標也表現強勁，我們已經積累了比以往任何時候都更多地收聽的高度參與的觀眾。上個季度，我們確認 Spotify 已成為美國聽眾使用最多的第一大播客平台，我們繼續看到有意義的市場份額增長。所以總的來說，我對 2022 年感覺非常好。

But let's move to the long term, which is where I try to focus my time. We are building a category-defining company, and this takes patience. And some may still describe us as the leading music subscription service. And while this surely reflects where we've been, it doesn't encompass all the advancements we've been making in the audio. And further, I don't think it properly captures all the future initiatives that we're working on either. It is, as [Jim Barkell] described, it's constantly about bundling and unbundling on the Internet.

但是讓我們轉向長期，這是我試圖集中時間的地方。我們正在建立一個定義類別的公司，這需要耐心。有些人可能仍將我們描述為領先的音樂訂閱服務。雖然這肯定反映了我們所處的位置，但它並不包含我們在音頻方面取得的所有進步。此外，我認為它也不能正確捕捉我們正在開展的所有未來計劃。正如 [Jim Barkell] 所描述的，它不斷地在 Internet 上進行捆綁和拆分。

So what are we focused on then? Well, the best way to describe it is a subset of the creator economy. People have been talking about the creator economy for some time and it has taken on many different meanings. For us, the single largest trend to keep track of is the rapid professionalization of creators. And I see this as one of the biggest opportunities on the Internet.

那麼我們關注的是什麼呢？好吧，描述它的最佳方式是創造者經濟的一個子集。人們談論創造者經濟已經有一段時間了，它具有許多不同的含義。對我們來說，要跟踪的最大趨勢是創作者的快速專業化。我認為這是互聯網上最大的機會之一。

And for all the millions of artists and creators that have leveraged Spotify to date, I think we've only scratched the surface of the creative potential in audio. To become the preferred destination for audio creators, we will accelerate the move from a one-size-fits-all model to a much more dynamic and open platform. And we will give them greater flexibility and the power to be more entrepreneurial, which will, of course, unlock the extraordinary potential of their business and communities.

對於迄今為止使用 Spotify 的數百萬藝術家和創作者來說，我認為我們只是觸及了音頻創作潛力的皮毛。為了成為音頻創作者的首選目的地，我們將加速從一刀切的模式轉變為更加動態和開放的平台。我們將賦予他們更大的靈活性和更具創業精神的力量，這當然會釋放他們的業務和社區的非凡潛力。

We will provide greater reach. We will provide tools and access to diverse revenue streams that can be personalized to meet the needs of each creator. I believe this will all lead to the creation of millions of jobs for the creator economy. And while this is not limited to Spotify, we are building the platform that will enable the whole ecosystem to work together on a global scale. And we think that the Spotify ecosystem alone will encompass more than 50 million active creators, which is a significant increase from the 11 million total that we have today.

我們將提供更大的影響力。我們將提供工具和訪問各種收入流的途徑，這些收入流可以個性化以滿足每個創作者的需求。我相信這一切都會為創造者經濟創造數百萬個就業機會。雖然這不僅限於 Spotify，但我們正在構建一個平台，使整個生態系統能夠在全球範圍內協同工作。我們認為，僅 Spotify 生態系統就將包含超過 5000 萬活躍創作者，這比我們今天擁有的 1100 萬總創作者數量顯著增加。

So think of it as 50 million small- and medium-sized businesses that we can support by giving them the infrastructure and resources to grow. And this evolution will take time, but I know some of you are wondering what this means in the near term. And the work there is already well underway.

因此，可以將其視為 5000 萬家中小型企業，我們可以通過為它們提供基礎設施和資源來支持它們的發展。這種演變需要時間，但我知道你們中的一些人想知道這在短期內意味著什麼。那裡的工作已經在順利進行。

This opportunity started to crystalize for me around our acquisition of Anchor with increasing momentum. It was clear to me from the feedback we heard that Anchor creators wanted more flexibility and more options to do business. And one recent example of this includes the Spotify Open Access platform. We brought it to market last year to enable creators with existing paid content businesses to activate their subscriber base on Spotify. And this means those creators, whether they're an independent podcaster, a major news outlet, an audio book publisher or creator platform can retain full control over their subscription base while leveraging the reach of Spotify to grow their audience.

在我們以越來越大的勢頭收購 Anchor 的過程中，這個機會開始為我具體化。從我們聽到的反饋中我清楚地知道，Anchor 創作者想要更多的靈活性和更多的選擇來開展業務。最近的一個例子包括 Spotify Open Access 平台。去年，我們將其推向市場，以使擁有現有付費內容業務的創作者能夠在 Spotify 上激活他們的訂閱者群。這意味著這些創作者，無論他們是獨立播客、主要新聞媒體、有聲讀物出版商還是創作者平台，都可以保留對其訂閱群的完全控制權，同時利用 Spotify 的影響力來擴大他們的受眾。

And based on the early success, you should expect us to continue to invest in ever-growing number of tools, resources and services for a broad range of creators to bring them to market. While many will be competing to seize a piece of this opportunity, I believe that we're uniquely well positioned to adapt to this changing environment and deliver for the good of the entire audio creator ecosystem.

基於早期的成功，您應該期望我們繼續投資於越來越多的工具、資源和服務，以供廣大創作者將其推向市場。雖然許多人將競相抓住這個機會，但我相信我們處於獨特的有利位置，可以適應這種不斷變化的環境，並為整個音頻創作者生態系統的利益做出貢獻。

So now before we go to Q&A, Paul, I believe you're also going to add a few thoughts. So over to you.

所以現在在我們進行問答之前，Paul，我相信你也會添加一些想法。所以交給你了。

Thanks, Daniel, and thanks, everyone, for joining us. While Daniel touched on most of our key KPIs, I wanted to add a bit of color on our gross margin, which finished at 26.5% in Q4, above the top end of our guidance range.

謝謝丹尼爾，也謝謝大家加入我們。雖然丹尼爾談到了我們的大多數關鍵 KPI，但我想為我們的毛利率增加一點色彩，第四季度的毛利率為 26.5%，高於我們指導範圍的上限。

Relative to our forecast, our gross margin was helped by a shift in investment costs that were originally targeted for Q4. That benefit was partially offset by an unforeseen expense related to our ads business.

相對於我們的預測，我們的毛利率得益於最初針對第四季度的投資成本的轉變。該收益被與我們的廣告業務相關的不可預見費用部分抵消。

Taken together, our gross margin still would have finished above the top end of the range. Some of the investment costs in Q4 that didn't materialize are now reflected in our Q1 gross margin guidance.

總而言之，我們的毛利率仍將高於該範圍的高端。第四季度未實現的一些投資成本現在反映在我們的第一季度毛利率指導中。

Looking at our full year 2021 margin of 26.8%, we made meaningful progress relative to the 25.6% we reported in 2020. Full year 2021 did benefit from close to 50 basis points of favorable royalty adjustments. However, even excluding them, gross margin was still an improvement year-on-year.

從我們 2021 年全年 26.8% 的利潤率來看，相對於 2020 年報告的 25.6%，我們取得了有意義的進展。2021 年全年確實受益於近 50 個基點的有利特許權使用費調整。然而，即使剔除它們，毛利率仍同比有所提高。

Looking into 2022, we expect a continuation of the favorable gross margin trend you saw in 2021 for our underlying business as we grow advertising and drive further growth in Marketplace contribution. We also expect improvement in our core podcast margins, both on the O&E front as well as on Megaphone. Given the encouraging traction we're seeing, we do plan to invest in incremental content and music initiatives in 2022 with an eye towards our long-term goals of 1 billion users, 20% plus revenue CAGR and a 30% to 40% gross margins.

展望 2022 年，我們預計隨著我們增加廣告業務並推動市場貢獻的進一步增長，您在 2021 年看到的有利毛利率趨勢將延續到我們的基礎業務。我們還預計我們的核心播客利潤率會有所提高，無論是在 O&E 方面還是在擴音器方面。鑑於我們看到的令人鼓舞的牽引力，我們確實計劃在 2022 年投資增量內容和音樂計劃，著眼於實現 10 億用戶、20% 以上的收入複合年增長率和 30% 至 40% 的毛利率的長期目標.

While these investments may slightly alter the progress we've seen in consolidated gross margin over the past 2 years, it is exactly this progress that has given us the conviction to increase our investments in certain areas and gives us confidence that we are on the right path over the long term.

雖然這些投資可能會稍微改變我們在過去 2 年中看到的綜合毛利率的進展，但正是這種進展讓我們有信心增加在某些領域的投資，並讓我們相信我們是正確的長期的路徑。

Finally, I want to expand upon our approach to guidance. As we said in our shareholder letter, we no longer plan to provide yearly targets. We will continue to share quarterly guidance as a way to update investors on the current trends in the business and we will simplify our approach by providing a single estimate for each metric instead of a range of outcomes. We are aligning our guidance practices with how we run the business as most of our investments are multiyear in nature and the exact timing of any specific launch may vary within a given year.

最後，我想擴展我們的指導方法。正如我們在股東信中所說，我們不再計劃提供年度目標。我們將繼續分享季度指導，作為向投資者更新業務當前趨勢的一種方式，我們將通過為每個指標而不是一系列結果提供單一估計來簡化我們的方法。我們正在使我們的指導實踐與我們經營業務的方式保持一致，因為我們的大部分投資都是多年期的，並且任何特定啟動的確切時間可能在給定的一年內有所不同。

With that being said, we do not anticipate any material changes in the trajectory for net growth in MAUs and subs in 2022 when compared to the net growth we experienced in 2021.

話雖如此，與我們在 2021 年經歷的淨增長相比，我們預計 2022 年 MAU 和子用戶的淨增長軌跡不會發生任何重大變化。

For Q1, we're expecting total MAUs of $418 million and 183 million subscribers. We anticipate that total revenues will come in at $2.6 billion, benefiting from approximately 360 basis points tailwinds to foreign exchange. We're expecting gross margin to be 25%, primarily due to the cost that didn't materialize in Q4 hitting in Q1.

對於第一季度，我們預計總月活躍用戶數為 4.18 億美元和 1.83 億用戶。我們預計總收入將達到 26 億美元，受益於大約 360 個基點的外匯順風。我們預計毛利率為 25%，主要是由於第一季度沒有實現的成本。

With respect to the subscriber net adds in Q1, please keep in mind that we expect a different level of seasonality for this metric over the course of 2022 due to anticipated promotional campaign activity and other initiatives. We're also excited to announce that we plan to host an Investor Day during Q2, where we'll talk about the big drivers of our business, the investments we are making and the financial results we expect over the long term. Stay tuned for more info.

關於第一季度的訂戶淨增加，請記住，由於預期的促銷活動和其他舉措，我們預計該指標在 2022 年期間的季節性水平會有所不同。我們還很高興地宣布，我們計劃在第二季度舉辦投資者日，屆時我們將討論我們業務的主要驅動力、我們正在進行的投資以及我們對長期預期的財務結果。敬請期待更多的信息。

And with that, I'll hand things back over to Bryan.

有了這個，我會把事情交還給布萊恩。

Thanks, Paul. (Operator Instructions) Our first question today is going to come from Rich Greenfield on Joe Rogan. And the question is, you've clearly changed your public stance given artist pushback to his content. Is it a slippery slope in censoring content on the platform and have any advertisers left Spotify in protest?

謝謝，保羅。 （操作員說明）我們今天的第一個問題將來自 Rich Greenfield 關於 Joe Rogan 的問題。問題是，鑑於藝術家拒絕他的內容，你顯然改變了你的公開立場。審查平台上的內容是否是一個滑坡，是否有任何廣告商離開 Spotify 以示抗議？

Right. I'll take this one. So I know this issue has been top of mind this week, but I think it's important to take a step back. We're trying to balance creative expression with the safety of our users. And of course, this is a very complicated issue, as I noted in my opening. But I'm really proud of the steps we took following the concerns raised by the medical and scientific communities.

對。我要這個。所以我知道這個問題是本週的頭等大事，但我認為退後一步很重要。我們試圖在創意表達與用戶安全之間取得平衡。當然，正如我在開場白中指出的那樣，這是一個非常複雜的問題。但我真的為我們在醫學和科學界提出的擔憂之後採取的步驟感到自豪。

It's worth noting that both the content advisories, the COVID-19 content on our platform with content from physicians and health experts, which I talked about in my post as well, as well as push policies for creators that have already begun to roll out. So I think the important part here is that we don't change our policies based on one creator nor do we change it based on any media cycle or called form anyone else. Our policies have been carefully written with the input from numbers of internal and external experts in this space. And I do believe they are right for our platform.

值得注意的是，我在帖子中也談到了內容建議、我們平台上的 COVID-19 內容以及來自醫生和健康專家的內容，以及針對已經開始推出的創作者的推動政策。所以我認為這裡的重要部分是我們不會根據一個創作者來改變我們的政策，我們也不會根據任何媒體週期或其他任何人來改變它。我們的政策是根據該領域內部和外部專家的意見精心編寫的。而且我確實相信它們適合我們的平台。

And while Joe has a massive audience, he's actually the #1 podcast in more than 90 markets. He also has to abide by those policies. So I think when you think about that and you think about the ads business, I have a tremendous amount of confidence in that. And of course, we're hearing from our partners. But Spotify has a broad range of content on our platform, so there really is something for everyone here and for advertisers to take too as well.

儘管 Joe 擁有大量觀眾，但他實際上是 90 多個市場中排名第一的播客。他還必須遵守這些政策。所以我認為，當您考慮到這一點並考慮廣告業務時，我對此充滿信心。當然，我們也收到了合作夥伴的來信。但 Spotify 在我們的平台上擁有廣泛的內容，因此這裡的每個人以及廣告商都可以接受。

All right. We're going to go to our next question from Richard Kramer. Nearly 4 years after your direct listing and facing the renegotiation of publishing rights post 2022, do you see material opportunities to raise gross margins in the music business given the role of labels and publishers?

好的。我們將回答 Richard Kramer 的下一個問題。在您直接上市近 4 年後，面對 2022 年後的出版權重新談判，鑑於唱片公司和出版商的角色，您是否看到了提高音樂業務毛利率的重大機會？

Well, I kind of alluded to this in my opening remarks, but I think the -- perhaps #1 misconception I see people making is that they think everything is an outcome based on negotiations with the industry and these renewals that we constantly are doing. And this is true, by the way. We do renew our label and publishing licenses pretty much every year. There's always one big upcoming renewal that we're constantly working on.

好吧，我在開場白中提到了這一點，但我認為——也許我看到人們做出的第一個誤解是，他們認為一切都是基於與行業談判以及我們不斷進行的這些更新的結果。順便說一句，這是真的。我們幾乎每年都會更新我們的標籤和出版許可證。我們一直在努力進行一項即將到來的重大更新。

But everyone thinks that it's really a function of that and that alone. But more and more, if we're building this creative platform, it will not be a function of just those licenses. But more and more, it will be based on these tools and services that we're building for creators on top. A good example that we talked about before has been the Marketplace efforts that we've been building on and that we've shared in prior quarters and also this quarter, the success that that's having.

但每個人都認為它真的是那個和那個的一個功能。但越來越多的是，如果我們正在構建這個創意平台，它不僅僅是那些許可證的功能。但越來越多的，它將基於我們為頂級創作者構建的這些工具和服務。我們之前談到的一個很好的例子是我們一直在建立的 Marketplace 努力，我們在前幾個季度和本季度都分享了它所取得的成功。

And all of those things are things even though we don't break them out that you can see is impacting the gross margins positively and have been over the year. And I think it's important to say that because if you take a step back, going into 2021, our expectation for gross margin, we have far surpassed and done much better. And those tools and services that were built is part of that story.

所有這些都是事情，即使我們沒有將它們分解出來，你可以看到它們對毛利率產生了積極的影響，並且已經持續了一年。而且我認為重要的是要說，因為如果你退後一步，進入 2021 年，我們對毛利率的預期，我們已經遠遠超過並且做得更好。那些構建的工具和服務就是這個故事的一部分。

All right. Next question from Mario Lu on subscriber net add trends. Average 27 million net sub adds annually for the past few years, is that still a benchmark to use for 2022? And are there any puts and takes that would cause the divergence from historical?

好的。訂閱者網上來自馬里奧·盧的下一個問題添加趨勢。過去幾年平均每年新增 2700 萬個淨訂閱用戶，這仍然是 2022 年的基準嗎？是否存在任何會導致與歷史背離的看跌期權？

Yes. Thanks, Mario. So first, I'll just kind of reiterate what I said in my opening comments is that although we're not giving full year guidance anymore, if you look at the net additions we achieved for both users and subs in 2021, we don't see any material change in that trajectory into 2022. So that's sort of how we're thinking about at a high level the 2022 numbers. And then just when you look at Q1 in particular, there's different seasonal trends and patterns in each year. What we've seen over the last couple of years is Q1 has become increasingly less important to us for yearly growth.

是的。謝謝，馬里奧。所以首先，我想重申一下我在開場白中所說的話，雖然我們不再提供全年指導，但如果你看看我們在 2021 年為用戶和訂閱用戶實現的淨增加量，我們不會到 2022 年，該軌跡不會發生任何重大變化。這就是我們在高層次上思考 2022 年數字的方式。然後當你特別看第一季度時，每年都有不同的季節性趨勢和模式。我們在過去幾年看到的是，第一季度對我們的年度增長來說變得越來越不重要。

Last year, in particular, we changed the cadence of some of our promotional activity. We actually had 3 campaigns for subscribers at varying shorter lengths, but more frequently which changed the seasonality throughout last year, more heavily weighted into Q2, 3 and 4. And we're likely to see similar types of seasonality again in 2022.

特別是去年，我們改變了一些促銷活動的節奏。實際上，我們為訂閱者進行了 3 個不同長度的活動，但更頻繁地改變了去年的季節性，在第二季度、第三季度和第四季度的權重更大。我們很可能在 2022 年再次看到類似類型的季節性。

All Right. Another question from Rich Greenfield on the advertising opportunity. Talk about advertising becoming 20% of revenues, if not 30% to 40% longer term. While you're no longer giving full year guidance, how do you think about the trajectory of getting to 20%? And what are the key puts and takes?

好的。 Rich Greenfield 提出的另一個關於廣告機會的問題。談論廣告成為收入的 20%，如果不是 30% 到 40% 的話。雖然您不再提供全年指導，但您如何看待達到 20% 的軌跡？什麼是關鍵的投入和投入？

Thanks, Rich. So I think, obviously, it's hard to predict long term exactly how it will play out. And I think when you look at platforms overall in this space, and the mix between different options, I think I've alluded to this in the past. I don't think many of these content platforms in the future are going to be single revenue stream. I think there are going to be multiple revenue streams, and it's really just about the mix. We started from the paid and we're obviously growing into having both advertising and paid. And there will be some other platform that started with advertising and then start adding more paid content as well.

謝謝，里奇。所以我認為，很明顯，很難準確預測長期的結果。而且我認為，當您查看該領域的整體平台以及不同選項之間的混合時，我想我過去曾提到過這一點。我認為未來這些內容平台中的許多都不會成為單一的收入來源。我認為將會有多種收入來源，而且實際上只是混合。我們從付費開始，顯然我們正在成長為同時擁有廣告和付費。還會有一些其他平台從廣告開始，然後也開始添加更多付費內容。

So I really think it's a combination of subscription, a la carte and advertising that long term will be the revenue mix. Now speaking specifically to advertising, what is the primary puts and takes? It really, at this present moment, comes down to 2 things primarily. One is inventory. We see an enormous amount of demand from advertisers. And the #1 thing that we're stretched for at the moment is more inventory. And that's why you see us introducing things such as SPAN and other things.

所以我真的認為這是訂閱、點菜和廣告的結合，長期將是收入組合。現在專門談談廣告，主要的投入和投入是什麼？目前，它確實主要歸結為兩件事。一是庫存。我們看到廣告商的大量需求。而我們目前緊張的第一件事是更多的庫存。這就是為什麼你看到我們介紹諸如 SPAN 和其他東西之類的東西。

And then long term, with a little bit more horizon, it's obviously international. So many platforms start out monetizing the U.S. and U.K. very well, but it takes a little bit more time to monetize the international markets. I don't think we will be an exception to that. So long term, I think it will be more geographical things, too. But there's really positive signals in those markets, too. I remember going back to the Chinese market 10, 15 years ago, there was a huge debate whether advertising was a viable model at all in the Chinese in that market.

然後是長期的，有更多的視野，它顯然是國際化的。這麼多平台一開始在美國和英國貨幣化方面做得很好，但在國際市場上貨幣化還需要一點時間。我認為我們不會例外。所以從長遠來看，我認為這也將是更多的地理問題。但這些市場也確實有積極的信號。我記得 10 年、15 年前回到中國市場，在那個市場的中國人中，廣告是否是一種可行的模式存在巨大的爭論。

And now you see gigantic companies being built with advertising as the #1 source. And I think that bodes really well for regions such as India, Indonesia and others, too, where Spotify has obviously had enormous success. But that's also how you should read into those investments. They may not be large from a revenue perspective today, but I'm absolutely confident that by investing in these markets and becoming the #1 audio platform there, that's going to be a very worthwhile position to own in the long term.

現在你看到了以廣告為第一來源的巨大公司。我認為這對於印度、印度尼西亞和其他地區來說也是一個好兆頭，Spotify 顯然在這些地區取得了巨大的成功。但這也是您應該如何解讀這些投資的方式。從今天的收入角度來看，它們可能並不大，但我絕對相信，通過投資這些市場並成為那裡的第一音頻平台，從長遠來看，這將是一個非常值得擁有的位置。

Yes. And I would just add a couple of points. I think, one, if you just look at this year, for the full year, we finished at 12% of revenue, 15% in Q4, and that was up from 9% of revenue last year. So we saw a nice growth there. Clearly, we saw a lot of strength in the advertising business coming out of 2021, which we continue to see in the start of 2022. I would also kind of echo what Daniel said about international. I think we talked about this last quarter about an investment push we're making to actually expand our advertising presence outside the U.S. We've had a blueprint in the U.S. that has worked really well for us, and you've seen that in the growth we have, both on the music side and the podcasting side.

是的。我只想補充幾點。我認為，如果你只看今年，全年，我們完成了收入的 12%，第四季度為 15%，這高於去年收入的 9%。所以我們在那裡看到了不錯的增長。顯然，我們在 2021 年看到了廣告業務的強大實力，我們將在 2022 年初繼續看到這一點。我也會回應丹尼爾關於國際的說法。我想我們在上個季度談到了我們正在推動的投資，以實際擴大我們在美國以外的廣告業務我們在美國製定了一個對我們來說非常有效的藍圖，你已經在我們在音樂方面和播客方面都有增長。

So we expect that, that investment we're making throughout 2022 will drive significant improvements on the advertising monetization outside North America.

因此，我們預計，我們在整個 2022 年所做的投資將推動北美以外的廣告貨幣化的顯著改善。

Next question is going to come from Batya Levi on premium ARPU. How should we think about premium ARPU trends in 2022? Can your recent price increases offset the pressure from growth in lower ARPU regions?

下一個問題將來自 Batya Levi 關於高級 ARPU 的問題。我們應該如何看待 2022 年的高端 ARPU 趨勢？您最近的價格上漲能否抵消較低 ARPU 地區的增長壓力？

Yes. So I guess just taking a step back, we saw a nice growth in ARPU throughout the year and finished Q4 up 3% and up 1% on a constant currency basis. So we feel good about the trajectory in ARPU. Some of those price increases will continue in the first half of the year, which will help. And I'd say, in general, we expect ARPU to be kind of flat to up a little bit in 2022.

是的。所以我想只是退後一步，我們看到全年 ARPU 增長良好，第四季度增長 3%，按固定匯率計算增長 1%。所以我們對 ARPU 的軌跡感覺很好。其中一些價格上漲將在今年上半年繼續，這將有所幫助。我想說的是，總的來說，我們預計 ARPU 將在 2022 年持平或略有上升。

A question from Matthew Thornton on advertising. You've talked about being supply-constrained in this part of your business. Can you update us on the supply-demand conditions you're seeing and the key drivers of supply in 2022?

Matthew Thornton 提出的關於廣告的問題。您已經談到在您的這部分業務中受到供應限制。您能否向我們介紹您所看到的供需狀況以及 2022 年供應的主要驅動因素？

Yes. So I'd say a couple of things here on the demand-supply side. First of all, we've grown podcasting in general. Well, music overall in podcasting as well as a percent. We're seeing engagement increasing across the platform, particularly in podcasting. We're seeing consumption increasing. So all of that is leading to more inventory, which is great.

是的。所以我想在供需方面說幾件事。首先，我們總體上發展了播客。好吧，播客中的音樂整體以及百分比。我們看到整個平台的參與度都在增加，尤其是在播客方面。我們看到消費在增加。所以所有這些都導致更多的庫存，這很好。

We're seeing more publishers in SPAN, up double digits quarter-over-quarter. So that's allowing us to see more inventory. And then what we've also seen is that with SPAN, we're able to monetize really well. And because we're monetizing giving people good returns, they're opting more inventory into the platform for us to sell. And then when we have more inventory to sell on the platform, you get even more advertisers who want to spend and be a part of that.

我們在 SPAN 中看到更多的出版商，環比增長兩位數。所以這讓我們可以看到更多的庫存。然後我們還看到，使用 SPAN，我們能夠很好地獲利。而且因為我們正在通過為人們提供良好的回報來貨幣化，他們選擇更多的庫存進入我們的平台進行銷售。然後，當我們有更多的庫存要在平台上銷售時，你會得到更多想要花錢並參與其中的廣告商。

So we're seeing this nice flywheel effect where the performance of SPAN is going really well. People are then adding in more inventory into the ecosystem and then more advertisers want to be part of an even bigger platform. So that's worked really well. Obviously, opening SPAN up into Anchor will be really strong as well, the potential to be strong for next year as well as a number of other initiatives.

所以我們看到了這種漂亮的飛輪效應，SPAN 的性能非常好。然後人們將更多的庫存添加到生態系統中，然後更多的廣告商希望成為更大平台的一部分。所以這非常有效。顯然，將 SPAN 開放到 Anchor 也將非常強大，明年的潛力以及其他一些舉措都將非常強大。

Yes. And the only thing I'd add is, I think it's really the combination here. It's really both about expanding audience but also expanding the number of creators, too. The more creators we have, the more inventory we have to place against it. And then obviously, the more users will come as a function of the more creators we have as well. So that's another sort of key component of this. And you've alluded to some of that in your question with audiobooks, et cetera.

是的。我唯一要補充的是，我認為這確實是這裡的組合。這實際上既是為了擴大受眾，也是為了擴大創作者的數量。我們擁有的創作者越多，我們必須針對它放置的庫存就越多。很明顯，我們擁有的創作者也越多，用戶就會越多。這是其中的另一種關鍵組成部分。您在有聲讀物等問題中提到了其中的一些內容。

All right. We've got another question for Matt. Do we have any update on the hi-fi tier? What's been the delay? And does your guidance contemplate any price increases in 2022?

好的。我們有另一個問題要問馬特。我們有關於 hi-fi 層的任何更新嗎？耽誤了什麼？您的指導是否考慮到 2022 年的價格上漲？

All right. So I'll start with the question and then Paul can speak to the guidance. So yes, I mean, many of the features that we talk about and especially that's related to music ends up into licensing. So I can't really announce any specific on this other than to say that we're in constant dialogue with our partners to bring this to market.

好的。所以我將從這個問題開始，然後保羅可以與指導交談。所以，是的，我的意思是，我們談論的許多功能，尤其是與音樂相關的功能，最終都會被許可使用。因此，除了說我們正在與合作夥伴不斷對話以將其推向市場外，我無法真正宣布任何具體內容。

Yes. And then with respect to price increases. We haven't commented on anything at this point in time. I go back to earlier in the year when we did make some price increases, we feel really good about the churn characteristics there, wasn't anything material as well as gross intake where there wasn't any material changes. So we feel good about the ones we've already put in place, but no comments or updates on any additional pricing increase moving forward.

是的。然後是關於價格上漲。我們目前還沒有對任何事情發表評論。我回到今年早些時候，我們確實進行了一些價格上漲，我們對那裡的流失特徵感覺非常好，沒有任何實質性的東西以及沒有任何實質性變化的總攝入量。因此，我們對我們已經實施的那些感覺很好，但沒有對未來任何額外的定價增加發表評論或更新。

The next question is going to come from Deepak. On premium subs, can you give us some color on your premium sub guidance of $183 million? Is there any impact from changes in promotions or incremental churn that's weighing on sub growth for the first quarter?

下一個問題將來自迪帕克。關於高級潛艇，你能給我們一些關於你 1.83 億美元的高級潛艇指導的顏色嗎？促銷活動的變化或增加的流失是否會對第一季度的次增長造成壓力？

Yes. So I addressed this a little bit earlier, but let me just kind of give a little bit more color. It's really a lot about the promotional cadence and the seasonality throughout the year. So as I said, if you go back a couple of years, historically, we had always done promotional campaigns in Q2 and Q3, and there's always some seasonality between Q1 and Q3 relative to Q2 and Q4.

是的。所以我早些時候解決了這個問題，但讓我稍微多一點顏色。全年的促銷節奏和季節性真的很多。所以正如我所說，如果你回顧幾年，從歷史上看，我們總是在 Q2 和 Q3 進行促銷活動，相對於 Q2 和 Q4，Q1 和 Q3 之間總是存在一些季節性。

Last year, we actually tested an additional campaign in Q3. And so instead of having 2 campaigns, we had 3 campaigns, and those campaigns were actually a little bit shorter in length in each period. And so that impacted the seasonality in 2021, and that will likely impact the seasonality in 2022. Additionally, when you look at Q4 in general, it just continues to become a bigger and bigger quarter for us. And so you saw both the success of the seasonal campaign in Q4, number one. And then the success of Wrapped also, which drives a lot of incremental traffic to Spotify.

去年，我們實際上在第三季度測試了一個額外的活動。因此，我們有 3 個廣告系列，而不是 2 個廣告系列，而且這些廣告系列在每個時期的長度實際上都短了一點。因此，這影響了 2021 年的季節性，這可能會影響 2022 年的季節性。此外，當你總體上看第四季度時，它只會繼續成為我們一個越來越大的季度。因此，您在第四季度看到了季節性活動的成功，排名第一。然後 Wrapped 的成功也為 Spotify 帶來了大量的增量流量。

And so when you look at Q1 in general, it continues to become just a smaller part of our overall subs picture every year. Part of it is just the hangover or the follow-through from how strong Q4 tends to be. And it's also a part of how we've now adjusted our promotional cadence throughout the rest of the year. And with respect to churn, while we don't give out churn guidance, churn has continued to come down. It's down year-on-year. When you look at our core churn of our monthly subscribers, we feel really good about the trajectory of the churns.

因此，當您總體上看第一季度時，它繼續成為我們每年整體潛艇圖景的一小部分。部分原因只是第四季度的強勁勢頭所帶來的宿醉或後續影響。這也是我們現在如何在今年剩餘時間調整促銷節奏的一部分。關於流失率，雖然我們沒有給出流失率指導，但流失率一直在下降。同比下降。當您查看我們每月訂戶的核心流失時，我們對流失的軌跡感覺非常好。

Okay. Next question from Andrew Marok on gross margin. How much do content investments play into the first quarter gross margin guidance? Is there anything notable driving the year-on-year decline?

好的。 Andrew Marok 關於毛利率的下一個問題。內容投資對第一季度毛利率指導有多大影響？有什麼值得注意的原因導致同比下降？

Yes. There's a few things in Q1. One is, as I mentioned, there was an initiative we were going to test in Q4. That test got pushed to Q1. So there's some incremental there. There's a few other things, the first year of [lyrics] which will have a little bit of an impact. And the rest is investments. As you've seen on the content side, we've had a lot of success, particularly in U.S. And so some of the content will continue to go to U.S. growth, but then as well as expanding a lot of our strategies and innovation into international markets and newer regions on the content spend.

是的。第一季度有一些事情。一個是，正如我所提到的，我們將在第四季度測試一項計劃。該測試被推到第一季度。所以那裡有一些增量。還有其他一些事情，[歌詞] 的第一年會產生一點影響。剩下的就是投資。正如您在內容方面所看到的，我們取得了很大的成功，尤其是在美國。因此，一些內容將繼續在美國增長，但隨後我們的許多戰略和創新也將擴展到國際市場和更新地區的內容支出。

And then I'd say lastly is we are still operating under the current CRB rates and so that will be a an impact a little bit in the U.S. as well on the publishing side. And as I said, in general, we feel really good about gross margins and how it's progressed over the last 2 years. It was up in '20 and again in '21. And when you look at sort of the core fundamentals of gross margins and the things that we're doing year-on-year, we're seeing a lot of leverage, particularly on core O&E podcasting as well as benefits from Marketplace and advertising. And so gross margin in 2022, it's really that confidence in what we've already done, which is giving us -- or giving us that confidence to continue to invest in 2022.

最後我想說的是，我們仍然在當前的 CRB 費率下運營，所以這將對美國以及出版方面產生一點影響。正如我所說，總的來說，我們對毛利率以及過去兩年的進展情況感到非常滿意。它在 20 年和 21 年再次出現。當您查看毛利率的核心基本面以及我們每年所做的事情時，我們會看到很多影響力，特別是在核心 O&E 播客以及市場和廣告的收益方面。所以 2022 年的毛利率，真的是對我們已經完成的事情的信心，這給了我們——或者給了我們在 2022 年繼續投資的信心。

All right. Next question from Justin Patterson on the 1 billion user opportunity. Daniel, last year at the StreamOn event, you previously spoke to a 1 billion user opportunity over the coming years. What are the key investments to get there as it implies a significant step-up from the current MAU base?

好的。 Justin Patterson 的下一個問題是關於 10 億用戶的機會。 Daniel，去年在 StreamOn 活動中，您之前談到了未來幾年 10 億用戶的機會。實現這一目標的關鍵投資是什麼，因為這意味著從當前的 MAU 基礎顯著提升？

Yes. I alluded to some of this in my opening remarks, but we think a very, very key effort in that is going from the 11 million total creators that exist on Spotify today to 15 million active creators on Spotify in the coming years. That amount of content, you're going to see a lot more engagement with the tools that we're building, both for creators and consumers alike. You're going to see consumers and creators expand their engagement in totally new ways that will, we think, define what this next generation of audio will look like.

是的。我在開場白中提到了其中的一些內容，但我們認為其中一項非常非常關鍵的努力是，從目前 Spotify 上現有的 1100 萬創作者總數到未來幾年 Spotify 上的 1500 萬活躍創作者。如此數量的內容，您將看到更多人參與我們正在構建的工具，無論是對於創作者還是消費者。您將看到消費者和創作者以全新的方式擴大他們的參與度，我們認為，這將定義下一代音頻的外觀。

But it's a little bit of a push. I would want to end by saying that you're going to hear us talk a lot more about this during our Investor Day. So I really hope to welcome all of you there to learn more about what our plans are for the coming years in that area.

但這有點推動。最後，我想說的是，在我們的投資者日期間，您將聽到我們更多地談論這個問題。因此，我真的希望歡迎大家到場，了解更多關於我們在該領域未來幾年的計劃。

Next question from Ben Swinburne. A couple of questions in here. Does the first quarter premium guide reflect elevated churn from the recent Joe Rogan controversy? And are there any additional steps you plan to take to contain potential fallout? And then separately, can you put the audiobooks opportunity in context for us?

Ben Swinburne 的下一個問題。這裡有幾個問題。第一季度的溢價指南是否反映了最近喬·羅根（Joe Rogan）爭議的高流失率？您是否計劃採取任何其他措施來控制潛在影響？然後，您能否將有聲讀物的機會放在我們的上下文中？

Yes, so I'll -- for the first time, I think I'll actually answer a guidance question, but I'll start there. Yes. No. So the easy answer is we don't reflect any churn from the recent JRE thing. In general, what I would say is it's too early to know what the impact may be. And usually, when we've had controversies in the past, those are measured in months and not days. But I feel good about where we are in relation to that. And obviously, top line trends look very healthy still.

是的，所以我會 - 第一次，我想我實際上會回答一個指導性問題，但我會從那裡開始。是的。不。所以簡單的答案是我們沒有反映最近 JRE 事件的任何流失。總的來說，我想說的是，現在知道影響可能還為時過早。通常，當我們過去發生爭議時，這些爭議是以月而不是天來衡量的。但我對我們在這方面所處的位置感覺很好。顯然，頂線趨勢看起來仍然非常健康。

So in terms of the steps that we've done, as I've outlined, we've taken pretty dramatic steps on Sunday in my blogpost. Three things. One is publishing our policies and making them clear to the world. Just an acknowledgment from my side. That's probably late, we should have done it earlier, and that's on me. But the second thing is very, very big and no other audio platform has done this, and that's providing this content advisory notice next to COVID-19 content.

因此，就我們已經完成的步驟而言，正如我所概述的，我們在周日的博文中採取了相當引人注目的步驟。三件事。一是公佈我們的政策，並讓全世界明白。只是我這邊的一個承認。那可能已經晚了，我們應該早點做，這取決於我。但是第二件事非常非常大，沒有其他音頻平台可以做到這一點，那就是在 COVID-19 內容旁邊提供此內容諮詢通知。

So all COVID-19 episodes will be tagged with this that then will link to a accompanied messaging by scientists, physicians and public organizations like the CDC and WHO, et cetera. You're going to notice this, and this is being rolled out right now as we're speaking. So this will be very prevalent, very visible at the very top of every episode that speaks about COVID-19. So I feel really good about what we're doing there. And it's really unprecedented compared to any other audio service what you'll see us do in the coming days.

因此，所有 COVID-19 劇集都將帶有此標籤，然後將鏈接到由科學家、醫生和公共組織（如 CDC 和 WHO 等）提供的隨附消息。你會注意到這一點，而且在我們發言的時候，它正在推出。因此，這將非常普遍，在每集談論 COVID-19 的開頭都非常明顯。所以我對我們在那裡所做的事情感覺非常好。與您將在未來幾天看到我們所做的任何其他音頻服務相比，這確實是前所未有的。

So the last thing then is, can you put the audiobooks opportunity in context for us? So I think that there's 2 modalities of audio somewhat simplified. We have the podcasting, which is what we've mostly been speaking about in the past call. But then there's also paid audio. Paid audio today is mostly the audiobooks business. So what's exciting for me is obviously enabling all forms of audio on this platform. And longer term, when I -- when we look at this platform, as I mentioned, I don't think it's just one size fits all. It's really about enabling a multitude of different audio creators, and we want to be the best place for all audio creators. And having the multitude of tools that enables them to monetize that content the best way that they see that fit.

所以最後一件事是，你能為我們提供有聲讀物的機會嗎？所以我認為有 2 種音頻模式有些簡化。我們有播客，這是我們在過去的電話會議中主要談論的內容。但是還有付費音頻。今天的付費音頻主要是有聲讀物業務。所以令我興奮的顯然是在這個平台上啟用所有形式的音頻。從長遠來看，當我 - 當我們看到這個平台時，正如我所提到的，我不認為它只是一刀切。這實際上是為了支持眾多不同的音頻創作者，我們希望成為所有音頻創作者的最佳場所。並且擁有眾多工具，使他們能夠以他們認為合適的最佳方式將內容貨幣化。

So that may be through subscription but it may be also through a la carte and it may also be advertising. So I think it's -- audiobooks, in our view, is a subset of the overall audio opportunity. But obviously, it touches a very important creator group, which is authors. So we're very excited about that opportunity. And long term, I think you can look at markets like China, for instance, to look at just the innovation that's happening in audiobooks there.

所以這可能是通過訂閱，但也可能是通過點菜，也可能是廣告。所以我認為，在我們看來，有聲讀物是整個音頻機會的一個子集。但顯然，它觸及了一個非常重要的創作者群體，那就是作者。所以我們對這個機會感到非常興奮。從長遠來看，我認為你可以看看像中國這樣的市場，例如，看看那裡的有聲讀物正在發生的創新。

For me, it's strange to imagine why not more of that type of innovation have come to many of the Western markets as well. And it's really in that vein that you should think about the Spotify platform. There's going to be a lot more openness and there's going to be a lot more flexibility in how we treat content and creators on our platform.

對我來說，奇怪的是為什麼沒有更多的此類創新也進入許多西方市場。你應該考慮 Spotify 平台。在我們如何對待我們平台上的內容和創作者方面，將會有更多的開放性和更多的靈活性。

Great. Next question is going to come from Eric Sheridan. Coming off the content investments of the last few years, can you update us on management's longer-term thoughts around gross margin trajectory and the mix of headwinds or tailwinds in the coming years?

偉大的。下一個問題將來自 Eric Sheridan。結束過去幾年的內容投資後，您能否向我們介紹管理層關於毛利率軌蹟的長期想法以及未來幾年的逆風或順風組合？

Yes. So to start, I'd say, at a high level, nothing has changed at all in terms of the long-term guidance we've already outlined in terms of where we think we go over the long term, that 30% to 40%, which we've already talked about. And as Daniel mentioned, hopefully, we'll have some time to unpack that more at the Investor Day in Q2. So that's number one. When you think about the headwinds and tailwinds, I think what I would say is we actually feel like we're getting nice leverage on a number of the initiatives we already have.

是的。因此，首先，我想說的是，在我們已經概述的長期指導方面，我們認為我們的長期發展方向沒有任何改變，從 30% 到 40% %，我們已經討論過了。正如丹尼爾所提到的，希望我們在第二季度的投資者日有一些時間來解開更多信息。所以這是第一名。當您考慮逆風和順風時，我想我想說的是，我們實際上覺得我們正在對我們已經擁有的許多舉措產生很好的影響。

So when you look at some of the content we've had on again, for more than a year, and you see revenue per listening hour increasing at a faster rate than cost per listening hour, we see that leverage starting to show up. And so the reason we're investing more is we're doing it incrementally in more regions and in more areas because we've seen the benefits of the leverage on the products that we've had for a period of time right now.

因此，當您再次查看我們一年多以來播放的一些內容時，您會看到每收聽小時的收入增長速度快於每收聽小時的成本，我們看到這種影響力開始顯現。因此，我們進行更多投資的原因是，我們正在更多地區和更多領域逐步開展這項工作，因為我們已經看到了一段時間以來對我們擁有的產品的槓桿作用的好處。

I would say the headwinds, a lot of them are, I would say, self-inflicted, meaning we are investing against what we think is an even bigger opportunity. And so we could probably be more harvest mode right now and show near-term more incremental margin expansion. But given what we're seeing in sort of the core business, we feel like the investments are really going to pay off to drive even bigger long-term gross margins in the future. So that's how we think about it.

我想說逆風，我想說，其中很多都是自己造成的，這意味著我們正在投資我們認為更大的機會。因此，我們現在可能會更加收穫模式，並顯示近期更多的增量利潤擴張。但考慮到我們在核心業務中看到的情況，我們覺得這些投資真的會得到回報，以推動未來更大的長期毛利率。所以我們就是這麼想的。

The one thing I would just add to that is when you look at it, when we signaled for 2020 and 2021 was actually that gross margins would go down with the levels of content investments that we were making. But if you look at what actually happened, we're really ahead of that plan. So a lot of these things are proving out in a very, very strong way in our business. And Paul alluded to some of those, it's Marketplace, it's obviously advertising and some of those other investments that we've been making in O&E content, too, which improves that gross margin. So we feel very emboldened by that, and that's honestly the light that you should look at our investments.

我要補充的一件事是，當你看到它時，當我們發出 2020 年和 2021 年的信號時，實際上毛利率會隨著我們正在進行的內容投資水平而下降。但如果你看看實際發生的事情，我們真的領先於這個計劃。所以很多這些事情都在我們的業務中以非常非常強大的方式得到證明。保羅提到了其中的一些，它是市場，顯然是廣告和我們在 O&E 內容上進行的一些其他投資，這也提高了毛利率。因此，我們對此感到非常有底氣，老實說，這就是您應該審視我們的投資的亮點。

All right. Next question from Mike Morris on Marketplace. How was 2-sided Marketplace driven benefit for both you and your label partners during the current contract period? Has it been a win-win? And do you expect terms to expand going forward? And how can this impact your gross margin progression?

好的。市場上 Mike Morris 的下一個問題。在當前合同期內，雙邊市場如何為您和您的標籤合作夥伴帶來好處？這是雙贏的嗎？你預計條款會在未來擴大嗎？這將如何影響您的毛利率增長？

Yes. So I'll deal with this. So I think the first thing that I would say is it has very little to do with our current contract period, like I alluded to in my prior conversation. It's more in addition to whatever the contract dictates. So the way you should think about this is that we have a platform and we have a set of licensing agreements that dictate a lot of the content that we have on that platform. In addition to that, there's a lot of tools and services that we have on top of our platform that all creators and all consumers can choose to opt into.

是的。所以我會處理這個。所以我認為我要說的第一件事是它與我們當前的合同期限幾乎沒有關係，就像我在之前的談話中提到的那樣。除了合同規定的任何內容之外，還有更多內容。因此，您應該考慮的方式是，我們擁有一個平台，並且我們擁有一套許可協議，這些協議規定了我們在該平台上擁有的許多內容。除此之外，我們平台上還有很多工具和服務可供所有創作者和所有消費者選擇加入。

And so Marketplace efforts are those types of businesses on top of our existing licensed content business. And so what's interesting for me and how you should think about gross margin progression is obviously each dollar that's generated by those tools and services that we're offering. Generally speaking, if there's software, means that they're more like 80% or 90% gross margin dollars that come in. And as you're dealing with Spotify overall, which, of course, is a lower gross margin business, that quickly adds up.

因此，市場工作是在我們現有的許可內容業務之上的那些類型的業務。所以對我來說有趣的是，你應該如何考慮毛利率的增長，顯然是我們提供的那些工具和服務產生的每一美元。一般而言，如果有軟件，則意味著它們更像是 80% 或 90% 的毛利率。當你與 Spotify 打交道時，這當然是一個較低的毛利率業務，很快加起來。

The only thing I would add on the Marketplace side, just to give some context is, first of all, as Daniel talked about it, we really think about it as really marketing tools that are working. The way it obviously shows up in the P&L is just purely on the gross margin side, even though it's really more of a kind of a marketing type of event. That being said, I think we gave a number of 30 million contribution in 2019. 2020, I'm not sure we gave a number, but you can assume it close to double in terms of the benefit. And then we saw a material increase again in 2021 with respect to Marketplace's contribution to the product.

我唯一要在 Marketplace 方面添加的內容，只是為了提供一些背景信息，首先，正如丹尼爾所說，我們真的認為它是真正有效的營銷工具。它顯然出現在損益表中的方式純粹是在毛利率方面，儘管它實際上更像是一種營銷類型的事件。話雖如此，我認為我們在 2019 年貢獻了 3000 萬。2020 年，我不確定我們給出了一個數字，但你可以假設它在收益方面接近兩倍。然後，我們看到 2021 年 Marketplace 對產品的貢獻再次出現實質性增長。

All right. Another question from Richard Kramer. This one's on engagement. If you're back to the same level of overall hours of listening but on a far larger base of subscribers, what does this say about engagement? Does that depend on reopening and commute times?

好的。理查德克萊默的另一個問題。這個訂婚了如果您恢復到相同水平的總收聽時間，但訂閱人數要大得多，這對參與度有什麼影響？這是否取決於重新開放和通勤時間？

I'm not sure I fully understand the question, so I think it might be a little -- missing something here. But actually listening hours per user is actually up. So engagement is actually really strong. We've seen this year was increase in DAU to MAU. So we're seeing daily actives overall in the platform go up. Listening hours per user was up. So engagement is actually strong and healthy on the platform.

我不確定我是否完全理解這個問題，所以我認為它可能有點——這裡遺漏了一些東西。但實際上每個用戶的收聽時間實際上已經增加了。因此，參與度實際上非常強。我們已經看到今年 DAU 與 MAU 相比有所增加。因此，我們看到平台中的整體每日活躍度上升。每個用戶的收聽時間增加了。因此，平台上的參與度實際上是強大且健康的。

Okay. A question from Steven Cahall on the gross margin outlook. While we realize you're no longer giving annual guidance, do you expect 2022 to be a year of operating leverage at the gross and operating lines? Or should we think about it more as an investment year as it relates to margin expansion?

好的。 Steven Cahall 關於毛利率前景的問題。雖然我們意識到您不再提供年度指導，但您是否預計 2022 年將成為毛線和運營線運營槓桿的一年？還是我們應該將其更多地視為與利潤率擴張相關的投資年？

Yes. I would say I think there's some puts and takes in that and it's one of the reasons why I kind of gave the commentary I gave at the beginning. I do see, as Daniel mentioned, sort of the core gross margin has gone really well. It's probably actually ahead of schedule in terms of where we are and where we thought we would be. And so on the gross margin for this year, we're going to continue to invest.

是的。我會說我認為有一些投入和接受，這也是我在開始時給出評論的原因之一。正如丹尼爾所說，我確實看到，某種核心毛利率進展得非常好。就我們所處的位置和我們認為的位置而言，它實際上可能提前了。等等今年的毛利率，我們將繼續投資。

That being said, we've seen improvements in areas faster than we thought in the past couple of years. So there's some puts and takes in the gross margin. And on the operating side, I do think you're going to see an increased investment. We've talked about some of the things we're doing on the ad side to grow the ads business outside the U.S., which, again, we believe will really actually significantly jumpstart the revenue opportunity there as well as things we do on the content side. So lots of puts and takes, but I think we feel really good overall with kind of how we came out of 2021 and where we're heading.

話雖如此，在過去幾年中，我們已經看到各個領域的改進速度比我們想像的要快。所以有一些看跌期權和毛利率。在運營方面，我確實認為你會看到投資增加。我們已經討論了我們在廣告方面正在做的一些事情，以發展美國以外的廣告業務，我們再次相信，這將真正顯著推動那裡的收入機會以及我們在內容上所做的事情邊。如此多的看跌期權，但我認為我們總體上感覺非常好，因為我們在 2021 年的表現以及我們的前進方向。

Okay. Another question from Deepak, this one on label relations. Can you refresh us on the timeline for the next round of label negotiations? And what would some of your priorities be in this next round?

好的。 Deepak 提出的另一個問題，這個關於標籤關係的問題。你能告訴我們下一輪標籤談判的時間表嗎？在下一輪中，您的一些優先事項是什麼？

Yes. So what I would say is the timeline for next round of label negotiations is always. So we constantly have some deal that's being renegotiated or negotiated again and extended pretty much always. So I don't think 2022 will be an exception to that rule. In general, the key priorities that we're working towards is just enabling more flexibility on the platform. So that's where you should expect us to be focused on in these negotiations because we want -- we really believe that the more we can act as a true platform where these creators can engage directly with their audience, go from casual listeners to fans to superfans, that's going to unlock the next wave of growth in the music economy.

是的。所以我要說的是下一輪標籤談判的時間表總是如此。因此，我們經常有一些交易正在重新談判或再次談判，並且幾乎總是會延長。因此，我認為 2022 年不會是該規則的例外。總的來說，我們正在努力實現的關鍵優先事項只是在平台上實現更大的靈活性。所以這就是你應該期望我們在這些談判中關注的地方，因為我們想要——我們真的相信，我們越能作為一個真正的平台，讓這些創作者可以直接與他們的觀眾互動，從普通聽眾到粉絲再到超級粉絲，這將開啟音樂經濟的下一波增長。

If you really take a step back and kind of look at it, like much of the early days of Spotify was really about stopping piracy. As simple as that. And I think we did a really good job in that. And the next step of that was turning people towards paying for streaming.

如果你真的退後一步，看看它，就像 Spotify 早期的大部分時間真的是為了阻止盜版。就如此容易。我認為我們在這方面做得非常好。下一步就是讓人們轉向為流媒體付費。

And now we're more than half of the entire music economy globally is streaming. And it's the most dominant way that the music industry currently exists. But I think the next evolution is we really replaced one model, right, which is you paid a la carte, which meant that typically the superfans were one paying for music and the vast majority of people weren't paying at all. Now we have an ecosystem where hundreds of millions of people are paying for music again across all of these subscription services, which I love because I go back 5 or 10 years ago, the fact that even one service or let alone every single service could have 100 million subscribers, which is not for most people to think about.

現在，我們有超過一半的全球音樂經濟是流媒體。這是音樂產業目前存在的最主要方式。但我認為下一個演變是我們真的更換了一個模型，對，你支付點菜，這意味著通常超級粉絲是為音樂買單的人，而絕大多數人根本不買單。現在我們有了一個生態系統，數以億計的人通過所有這些訂閱服務再次為音樂付費，我喜歡它，因為我回到了 5 或 10 年前，事實上，即使是一項服務，更不用說每一項服務都可以擁有1億訂閱者，這不是大多數人想的。

And now you see lots of subscription services getting to 100 million. And obviously, Spotify is one of the largest with our base. And in music, we are the largest. So I think that just shows that scale has been redefined when it comes to the Internet. But what's true here is that so far, right now, we're kind of monetizing everyone with a one-size-fits-all model. Yes, we do have free and we have this paid subscription.

現在你看到很多訂閱服務達到了 1 億。顯然，Spotify 是我們基礎最大的公司之一。在音樂方面，我們是最大的。所以我認為這只是表明互聯網的規模已經被重新定義。但這裡的真實情況是，到目前為止，現在，我們正在通過一種萬能的模型將每個人貨幣化。是的，我們有免費的，我們有這個付費訂閱。

But I think the evolution here will be about unlocking through superfans. That's where the real dollars comes in. And that was always the music business to begin with. And when we unlock that, I think we'll unlock the next wave of growth in the music economy. So for me, that is the #1 thing that I'm focused on unlocking, more flexibility, more ways for creators to use their assets, videos, engage with people, have their content show up in new unexpected ways. That will drive engagement and that, in turn, will drive people to move from casual listeners all the way up to a superfan and enables new forms of monetization, too.

但我認為這裡的演變將是通過超級粉絲解鎖。這就是真正的錢進來的地方。而這始終是音樂業務的起點。當我們解鎖它時，我認為我們將解鎖音樂經濟的下一波增長。所以對我來說，這是我專注於解鎖的第一件事，更多的靈活性，更多的方式讓創作者使用他們的資產、視頻、與人互動，讓他們的內容以新的意想不到的方式出現。這將推動參與度，進而推動人們從普通聽眾轉變為超級粉絲，並實現新的貨幣化形式。

All right. Another question from Ben Swinburne. Despite being your most penetrated and most competitive region, North America continues to be your fastest-growing premium base. Is that a sign that the international runway for premium growth remains long or is it that international willingness to pay is a headwind?

好的。 Ben Swinburne 的另一個問題。儘管是您滲透率最高和最具競爭力的地區，但北美仍然是您增長最快的優質基地。這是否表明保費增長的國際跑道仍然很長，或者國際支付意願是否是逆風？

No, I think we -- first of all, I think we definitely think there's plenty of growth in both. I think what you've seen in a lot of areas is in your more established markets, you grow there really fast and then the monetization comes after. And then you grow into newer markets, and you get sort of through critical mass and then the monetization comes after that. And so what we've seen is healthy growth in users and subs across all of our regions.

不，我認為我們——首先，我認為我們絕對認為兩者都有很大的增長。我認為你在很多領域看到的是在你更成熟的市場，你在那裡發展得非常快，然後貨幣化就來了。然後你發展到新的市場，你通過臨界質量獲得了某種程度的收益，然後貨幣化就出現了。因此，我們看到的是我們所有地區的用戶和訂閱者的健康增長。

You've seen a lot of, in the last couple of quarters, MAU growth coming out of Rest of World and LatAm and some of our newer markets. And those will monetize over time. And so I think that's the dynamic we see at play here. So we feel good about the monetization we're seeing in North America as well as Europe. And we see the opportunity to continue to grow and expand in LatAm and rest of world, and the revenue will then follow after that.

在過去的幾個季度中，您已經看到很多來自世界其他地區和拉丁美洲以及我們的一些新市場的 MAU 增長。隨著時間的推移，這些將貨幣化。所以我認為這就是我們在這裡看到的動態。所以我們對我們在北美和歐洲看到的貨幣化感覺很好。我們看到了在拉丁美洲和世界其他地區繼續增長和擴張的機會，然後收入將隨之而來。

One additional comment I'd just make is really the one about sort of emerging markets that I made about advertising. 10 years ago, people really did not think advertising would be a viable medium in many emerging markets. And obviously, we're now seeing that that's not the case. So looking at paid subscription, now a lot of people are saying, well, paid subscription can't be a viable means in many of these emerging markets. I think that will turn out to be untrue as well in the coming years. And that's certainly what we're investing behind.

我要補充的另一條評論實際上是關於我對廣告的新興市場的評論。 10 年前，人們真的不認為廣告會成為許多新興市場的可行媒介。顯然，我們現在看到情況並非如此。所以看看付費訂閱，現在很多人都說，嗯，付費訂閱在許多新興市場中不是一種可行的方式。我認為這在未來幾年也將被證明是不真實的。這當然就是我們所投資的。

But that said, there are local nuances in how you market to these customers, how they pay for services, too. So we're doing a ton of innovation on that front. We're doing weekly payments, prepaid payments. We have [took tooks] driving around in markets collecting physical cash to pay for the subscription, too. It's really, really staggering. And really cool to see all the ways that Spotify is showing up locally around the world.

但話雖如此，您如何向這些客戶推銷，以及他們如何為服務付費，都存在當地的細微差別。因此，我們在這方面進行了大量創新。我們正在做每週付款，預付付款。我們也 [採取了措施] 在市場上四處走動，收集實物現金來支付訂閱費用。真的，真的很驚人。看到 Spotify 在世界各地出現的所有方式真的很酷。

All right. We've got time for 1 or 2 more questions. We're going to take one from Mark Mahaney on Marketplace. Two-sided Marketplace came in stronger than you had estimated in 2021. How do you think about growth for 2-sided Marketplace going forward? And are there any proxies or bogeys that suggest how big this part of your business could get?

好的。我們有時間再回答 1 或 2 個問題。我們要從 Marketplace 上的 Mark Mahaney 那裡拿一個。雙面市場在 2021 年的表現比您預期的要強勁。您如何看待未來雙面市場的增長？是否有任何代理或忌諱表明您的這部分業務可以發展到多大？

Well, maybe I'll start and then see if Paul wants to chime in. So yes, I mean I'm very pleased with the results of a 2-sided Marketplace. And while it's certainly in the early innings, I think, both in the tools that we have available now, but just imagine it's more as an umbrella for all of the tools that have been sort of alluding to earlier this day too about superfan monetization, about various ways where in audiobooks, you can imagine advertising or a la carte payments, et cetera. It's really about allowing more flexibility for creators and consumers alike.

好吧，也許我會開始，然後看看保羅是否想插話。所以是的，我的意思是我對雙面市場的結果非常滿意。雖然它肯定是在早期階段，但我認為，無論是在我們現在可用的工具中，但想像一下它更像是今天早些時候提到的關於超級粉絲貨幣化的所有工具的保護傘，關於有聲讀物的各種方式，您可以想像廣告或點菜付款等。這實際上是為創作者和消費者提供更多的靈活性。

So long term, I think when you look at the umbrella of Marketplace, there will be a lot more for us to do and to launch. And I think the potential is just gigantic. It's really about unlocking the creative economy. Obviously, in the near term, there's lots of puts and calls on how we grow the number of creators that are engaging in the existing products that we have. And obviously, our ability to ship new products that resonate with creators and consumers alike. So those are kind of the puts and calls, and I think Paul talked about this earlier, too.

從長遠來看，我認為當您查看 Marketplace 的保護傘時，我們還有很多事情要做和推出。而且我認為潛力是巨大的。這真的是關於解鎖創意經濟。顯然，在短期內，有很多關於我們如何增加參與我們現有產品的創作者的數量。顯然，我們有能力推出能引起創作者和消費者共鳴的新產品。所以這些都是看跌期權和看漲期權，我認為保羅之前也談到了這一點。

The hardest thing for us oftentimes to -- is to gauge exactly when something will launch because we're always running hundreds, if not thousands, of different experiments across the platform. So I don't know which exact of these things will resonate by what time. But what I can say is that the fact that creators and consumers want to interact in new ways and that there will be lots of ways to monetize those relationships, that I don't think should be questioned. That's really a massive mega trend on the Internet.

對我們來說，最難的事情通常是準確衡量什麼時候啟動，因為我們總是在平台上運行數百甚至數千個不同的實驗。所以我不知道這些東西中的哪一個會在什麼時候引起共鳴。但我可以說的是，創作者和消費者希望以新的方式進行互動，並且將有很多方法可以通過這些關係獲利，我認為這不應該受到質疑。這確實是互聯網上的一個巨大趨勢。

And I would just add, I think I mentioned earlier, but we feel really good about how it's progressing on our gross margins. So I won't go through the numbers again, but gross profit dollars and it really is marketing and tools and services that are resonating, and we've seen it in the benefit of the P&L.

我想補充一下，我想我之前提到過，但我們對毛利率的進展感覺非常好。所以我不會再重複這些數字，但毛利潤美元，它確實是引起共鳴的營銷、工具和服務，我們已經從損益表的好處中看到了這一點。

Okay. Great. We've got a question here from Hamilton Faber. Can you update us on the performance of the new markets that you launched in 2021, and how they performed relative to expectations?

好的。偉大的。我們有一個來自 Hamilton Faber 的問題。您能否向我們介紹您在 2021 年推出的新市場的表現，以及它們相對於預期的表現如何？

Maybe I can start and then Paul can chime in. We probably won't break out a lot of markets, but I'll make an exception here. Now it's never what you imagine when you launch them. So an example, one of the highlights we have over one of the most successful markets is Venezuela. And I don't think that we had that one on our bingo cards as being one of the more successful breakout markets of the early ones. But honestly, when you look back, when we've made these batch launches before, which we've made a number of different times, we had a very similar one in LatAm. It follows very much the same trajectory.

也許我可以開始，然後保羅可以插話。我們可能不會打破很多市場，但我會在這裡破例。現在，當您啟動它們時，它永遠不是您想像的那樣。舉個例子，我們在最成功的市場之一上擁有的亮點之一是委內瑞拉。而且我認為我們的賓果卡上沒有那個是早期更成功的突破市場之一。但老實說，當你回頭看時，當我們之前進行過這些批量發佈時，我們已經做了很多次，我們在拉丁美洲也有過非常相似的一次。它遵循非常相同的軌跡。

So you launched these markets, it's very hard to predict where it will be easy, where it will take a little bit longer. Early on, for instance, Mexico and the LatAm launch was a very tough market where Argentina turned out to be a very easy growth market when we launched many years ago in LatAm. And when you look at it now, just 2 years after that, it completely switched and Argentina turned out to be harder growth and Mexico was the sort of growth trend driving.

所以你推出了這些市場，很難預測哪裡容易，哪裡需要更長的時間。例如，在早期，墨西哥和拉美的發布是一個非常艱難的市場，當我們多年前在拉美髮佈時，阿根廷變成了一個非常容易增長的市場。當你現在看它時，僅僅 2 年後，它就完全轉變了，阿根廷的增長變得更加困難，而墨西哥正是這種增長趨勢的驅動力。

And then later on than that, Brazil came kind of from nowhere and started taking over and impacting overall growth a lot. So I think you're going to see us learning and adapting to these markets. Obviously, in the early part, the contribution will be small, but I'm confident that in the coming years that they'll start impacting the results of Spotify very positively.

在那之後，巴西不知從何而來，開始接管並對整體增長產生很大影響。所以我認為你會看到我們學習和適應這些市場。顯然，在早期，貢獻會很小，但我相信在未來幾年他們將開始對 Spotify 的結果產生非常積極的影響。

Okay, great. So that's going to wrap up the Q&A portion of today's earnings call. And actually, I want to turn it back over to Daniel for some closing remarks.

好，太棒了。以上就是今天財報電話會議的問答部分。實際上，我想把它交還給 Daniel 做一些結束語。

All right. Well, thank you, Bryan, for that. And I wanted also to thank you all for joining the call. I really hope you're as excited about the businesses as we are. We really just feel like we're getting started. And we will continue to accelerate our work and the pace of innovation as we pursue what, in our view, is probably one of the biggest opportunities on the Internet, and that's the one of the creator economy and the role that we want to play in opening that up for more creators.

好的。好吧，謝謝你，布萊恩。我還要感謝大家加入電話會議。我真的希望你和我們一樣對這些業務感到興奮。我們真的只是覺得我們正在開始。我們將繼續加快我們的工作和創新步伐，因為我們追求在我們看來可能是互聯網上最大的機會之一，這就是創造者經濟和我們想要扮演的角色之一為更多的創作者打開了大門。

So I look forward to sharing more details at the Investor Day. But first, I'll be talking more about the quarter on our podcast, For The Record, which will go live on our platform tomorrow. I really hope you guys will tune in. Thank you again.

所以我期待在投資者日分享更多細節。但首先，我將在我們的播客 For The Record 中更多地談論本季度，該播客將於明天在我們的平台上上線。我真的希望你們能收聽。再次感謝你們。

Okay. And that concludes today's call. A replay will be available on our website and also on the Spotify app under Spotify Earnings Call Replays. Thanks again, everyone, for joining.

好的。今天的電話會議到此結束。重播將在我們的網站以及 Spotify 應用程序的 Spotify Earnings Call Replays 下提供。再次感謝大家的加入。