Spotify Technology SA (SPOT) 2021 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Spotify Q2 2021 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Bryan Goldberg, Head of Investor Relations. Thank you, sir. You may begin.

女士們，先生們，感謝你們的支持，歡迎來到 Spotify 2021 年第二季度收益電話會議。 （操作員說明）我現在想把會議交給今天的演講者，投資者關係主管布萊恩戈德堡。謝謝你，先生。你可以開始了。

Thank you, and welcome to Spotify's Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. Joining us today will be Daniel Ek, our CEO; and Paul Vogel, our CFO. We'll start with opening comments from Daniel. And afterwards, Daniel and Paul will be happy to answer your questions. Questions can be submitted by going to slido.com, S-L-I-D-O.com and using the code #SpotifyEarningsQ221. Analysts can ask questions directly into Slido, and all participants can then vote on the questions they find the most relevant. (Operator Instructions) If for some reason you don't have access to Slido, you can e-mail Investor Relations at ir@spotify.com, and we'll add in your question.

謝謝，歡迎來到 Spotify 2021 年第二季度收益電話會議。今天加入我們的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 Daniel 的開放評論開始。之後，Daniel 和 Paul 將很樂意回答您的問題。可以前往 slido.com、S-L-I-D-O.com 並使用代碼 #SpotifyEarningsQ221 提交問題。分析師可以直接向 Slido 提出問題，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）如果由於某種原因您無法訪問 Slido，您可以發送電子郵件至 ir@spotify.com 聯繫投資者關係部，我們將添加您的問題。

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.

在我們開始之前，讓我快速介紹一下安全港。在此次電話會議中，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。這些陳述基於受風險和不確定因素影響的當前預期和假設。由於在今天的電話會議、我們致股東的信中以及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。

During this call, we'll also refer to certain non-IFRS financial measures. 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.

在本次電話會議中，我們還將參考某些非 IFRS 財務指標。我們的 IFRS 和非 IFRS 財務措施之間的對賬可以在我們投資者關係網站財務部分的致股東信中找到，並且今天還通過 6-K 表提供。

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 thank you so much for joining us. I will touch briefly on the quarter and then offer context for some of the opportunities I see across our business. All along, we've been pretty clear that our outlook for 2021 included a higher degree of variability given the ongoing uncertainties of the pandemic and the uneven recovery worldwide. And with the exception of MAU, we've had another strong quarter, which is apparent in the solid outperformance of all other metrics. And while I'm disappointed that our MAU growth was softer in the last half of Q1 and the first half of Q2, the good news is that we've seen the trend line reverse and all the leading indicators I'm seeing show that we're back on track. And there's a lot to learn for us on the MAU shortfall. Markets like India, Brazil and parts of Southeast Asia lagged behind our expectations, and we've also seen slightly slower adoption rate in some of our newly launched markets.

好的。大家好，非常感謝您加入我們。我將簡要介紹本季度，然後提供我在整個業務中看到的一些機會的背景信息。一直以來，我們一直非常清楚，鑑於大流行病的持續不確定性和全球復甦的不均衡，我們對 2021 年的展望包含更大程度的可變性。除了 MAU 之外，我們還有一個強勁的季度，這在所有其他指標的強勁表現中顯而易見。雖然我對第一季度後半段和第二季度上半年的 MAU 增長放緩感到失望，但好消息是我們已經看到趨勢線反轉，我看到的所有領先指標都表明我們重回正軌。在 MAU 短缺方面，我們需要學習很多東西。印度、巴西和東南亞部分地區等市場落後於我們的預期，我們還發現一些新推出的市場的採用率略有放緩。

All these regions have been hard hit by COVID. Ultimately, we lost about 1/4 of growth between Q1 and Q2. And in hindsight, we'd likely underestimated the acceleration we saw in MAU growth in 2020. All that said, I feel really, really good about what we're seeing. Taking a bigger picture view and looking at the last 2 years average together, we're still on track to outpace our MAU growth in these 2 previous years. 2020 was a bit of an outlier. Companies rarely grow in a straight line, and nothing in our data changes our long-term outlook and the audio opportunity for Spotify.

所有這些地區都受到 COVID 的重創。最終，我們在第一季度和第二季度之間失去了大約 1/4 的增長。事後看來，我們可能低估了 2020 年 MAU 增長的加速。總而言之，我對我們所看到的情況感覺非常非常好。從更大的角度來看，同時審視過去 2 年的平均水平，我們仍然有望超過前 2 年的 MAU 增長。 2020 年有點異常。公司很少直線增長，我們的數據中的任何內容都不會改變我們的長期前景和 Spotify 的音頻機會。

In fact, if there's one thing that has surprised me the most during COVID, it's been how effectively we've been able to dream up and accelerate the roll-up of new innovations in the midst of tremendous disruption, while also executing against our existing road map. And long term, I believe speed of iteration will be a key competitive differentiator. So there's a lot of positives that we also bring with us from this. We've highlighted several of these innovations in our letter, where we've actually introduced more than 20 significant new features over the last few months. It's been on everything from collaborative listening worldwide to launching our new live audio experience, Spotify Greenroom.

事實上，如果說在 COVID 期間最讓我驚訝的一件事，那就是我們如何有效地在巨大的破壞中構想和加速新創新的匯總，同時還針對我們現有的執行路線圖。從長遠來看，我相信迭代速度將成為一個關鍵的競爭優勢。因此，我們也從中帶來了很多積極因素。我們在信中強調了其中的幾項創新，在過去幾個月中我們實際上引入了 20 多項重要的新功能。從全球協作聆聽到推出我們全新的現場音頻體驗 Spotify Greenroom，它涵蓋了方方面面。

We also began rolling out paid podcast subscriptions and Spotify Open Access, both of which offer solutions for creators and publishers to earn revenue from their Spotify listeners. These product innovations unlock an entirely new class of content on Spotify. And I'm hearing from consumers and creators alike about their first-hand experiences with the changes they are seeing on the Spotify platform. And frankly, from where I sit, it's incredibly exciting to know that there are plenty of improvements we can deliver that will substantially enhance our offering and, as a consequence, open new doors for Spotify as well. And all of this has been accomplished while our entire team has been remote, allowing more teams across the world to collaborate on each new release. And we've used our learnings to supercharge our velocity of shipping, and that impact is starting to show.

我們還開始推出付費播客訂閱和 Spotify Open Access，這兩者都為創作者和出版商提供了從他們的 Spotify 聽眾那裡賺取收入的解決方案。這些產品創新在 Spotify 上開啟了全新的內容類別。我從消費者和創作者那裡聽到了他們在 Spotify 平台上看到的變化的第一手體驗。坦率地說，從我的角度來看，得知我們可以提供大量改進，這些改進將大大增強我們的產品，並因此也為 Spotify 打開新的大門，我感到非常興奮。所有這一切都是在我們整個團隊都處於遠程狀態的情況下完成的，這使得世界各地的更多團隊能夠在每個新版本上進行協作。我們已經利用我們的學習來提高我們的運輸速度，並且這種影響開始顯現。

Put in other words, the platform we're building is all about moving from 8 million to 50 million creators and from 400 million to more than 1 billion users on our platform. For each improvement, we will turn more listeners into super fans, give voice to more types of creators and offer users multiple of ways to interact and engage with the talent they love. When we connect creators at every stage with fans around the world, our flywheel moves faster and faster, unlocking even more potential growth. We are still early in moving linear radio to on-demand audio, which just goes to show the growth opportunity still out there is significant. Then of course, there's the growing strength and importance of our ad business. Admittedly, this is an area where I previously didn't spend much time, but it's becoming impossible to ignore. It's now safe to say it's becoming a second big revenue driver for Spotify.

換句話說，我們正在構建的平台就是要讓我們平台上的創作者從 800 萬增加到 5000 萬，從 4 億增加到超過 10 億。對於每一項改進，我們都會將更多的聽眾變成超級粉絲，讓更多類型的創作者發聲，並為用戶提供多種方式與他們喜愛的人才互動和互動。當我們將各個階段的創作者與世界各地的粉絲聯繫起來時，我們的飛輪運轉得越來越快，釋放出更多的潛在增長。我們仍處於將線性廣播轉向點播音頻的早期階段，這恰恰表明仍然存在巨大的增長機會。當然，我們的廣告業務的實力和重要性也在不斷增強。不可否認，這是一個我以前沒有花太多時間的領域，但它變得無法忽視。現在可以肯定地說，它正在成為 Spotify 的第二大收入來源。

And I'm especially inspired by the early success of the Spotify Audience Network. While we are growing the overall ads business from a small base, the potential is significant and the trend line is clear. We saw strong growth of 110% year-over-year. Adjusting for FX, the growth is even more impressive, coming in at 126%. And looking at podcasts, podcast revenue was up over 627% year-over-year or nearly 200% on an organic basis. And the continued outperformance is currently limited only by the availability of our inventory, which is something we're actively solving for. So it's clear to me that the days of our ad business accounting for less than 10% of our total revenue are behind us. And going forward, I expect ads to grow to be a substantial part of our revenue mix. So as you can see, there's a lot going on, and there's a powerful pipeline of platform improvements that will benefit consumers, creators and brand partners in Q3 and Q4.

我尤其受到 Spotify Audience Network 早期成功的啟發。雖然我們正在從小規模發展整體廣告業務，但潛力巨大且趨勢線清晰。我們看到了 110% 的同比強勁增長。調整外匯後，增長更為可觀，達到 126%。看看播客，播客收入同比增長超過 627%，有機增長近 200%。目前持續的優異表現僅受我們庫存可用性的限制，這是我們正在積極解決的問題。所以我很清楚，廣告業務占我們總收入不到 10% 的日子已經一去不復返了。展望未來，我預計廣告將成為我們收入組合的重要組成部分。正如你所看到的，有很多事情正在發生，並且有一個強大的平台改進管道，這將使第三季度和第四季度的消費者、創作者和品牌合作夥伴受益。

And now I'll turn it back to Bryan and the questions.

現在我將把它轉回 Bryan 和問題。

Thanks, Daniel. (Operator Instructions)

謝謝，丹尼爾。 （操作員說明）

And the first question today is going to come from Ben Swinburne. Can you provide some data during the first half of the year that supports the view that MAU weakness is driven by COVID-related factors? For example, are the regions performing better or worse where the variance can be explained by different phases of lockdown, reopening or economic stress?

今天的第一個問題將來自 Ben Swinburne。您能否提供上半年的一些數據來支持 MAU 疲軟是由 COVID 相關因素驅動的觀點？例如，在不同階段的封鎖、重新開放或經濟壓力可以解釋差異的地區，這些地區的表現是好是壞？

Yes. Thanks, Ben. So we can and we've looked at this. And so there's a couple of things I would highlight. So first is we know in general that engagement leads to better MAU and better retention. And so where we have markets where engagement is high, we're seeing positive trends and where engagement is not as high, the trends aren't as great. And so how can we measure that? Well, there's a couple of ways. One is what we've noticed in markets that where COVID is significant, lockdowns are significant or the spread is significant, you're seeing less mobility. And in markets where you're seeing things more open, you're seeing more mobility. And more mobility leads to higher engagement, which tends to lead to higher retention and better MAU. So we've seen it in that data.

是的。謝謝，本。所以我們可以，而且我們已經研究過了。因此，我要強調幾件事。因此，首先我們通常知道，參與會帶來更好的 MAU 和更好的留存率。因此，在我們擁有高參與度的市場的地方，我們看到了積極的趨勢，而在參與度不高的地方，趨勢就不那麼好了。那麼我們如何衡量呢？好吧，有幾種方法。一個是我們在市場上註意到的情況，即在 COVID 很重要、封鎖很嚴重或價差很大的地方，你會看到流動性較低。在你看到事物更加開放的市場中，你會看到更多的流動性。更多的流動性導致更高的參與度，這往往會導致更高的保留率和更好的 MAU。所以我們已經在該數據中看到了它。

We've also seen it, as we've talked about in the past, when we first went into COVID, we sort of mentioned that every day kind of look like the weekend, meaning every day had sort of similar types of patterns that were like a Saturday or Sunday, you didn't have the normal cyclicality in the day through a commute. And what we've seen is, again, in markets that are more open, in markets that are -- where it's less of an issue, you're seeing a little bit more of a return to cyclicality. Weekdays are starting to get back to the way they normally are with that cyclicality and that usage and engagement. And in markets where COVID is still bad and we're still in lockdown phase, those midweek days are still looking like weekend days. And so we can see it in that data as well.

我們也看到了，正如我們過去所討論的那樣，當我們第一次進入 COVID 時，我們有點提到每一天看起來都像週末，這意味著每一天都有類似的模式就像星期六或星期天一樣，你在通勤途中沒有正常的周期性。我們再次看到，在更加開放的市場中，在問題不那麼嚴重的市場中，你會看到更多的周期性回歸。隨著這種週期性、使用和參與，工作日開始恢復到正常狀態。在 COVID 仍然很糟糕且我們仍處於鎖定階段的市場中，那些周中的日子仍然看起來像週末。因此我們也可以在該數據中看到它。

So that's kind of a nutshell sort of thinking about it from the engagement and metrics perspective. The other thing we know is in markets where COVID was very prevalent, we cut back on marketing and advertising pretty significantly. So regions, in particular, India is one where we're still relatively new there. We know how our marketing plans work. We know that when we do marketing plans, they tend to have a direct impact on user growth in India. We didn't really spend any money in Q2 in India, given what was going on with COVID in that area. And so as we increase some of the advertising, increase some of the spend in the back half of the year, assuming some of these markets get better, we feel like we'll see some of that MAU growth come back where we weren't spending in the last quarter.

因此，這是從參與度和指標的角度對它進行的一種概括性思考。我們知道的另一件事是在 COVID 非常普遍的市場中，我們大幅削減了營銷和廣告。所以地區，特別是印度，是我們在那裡還相對較新的地區。我們知道我們的營銷計劃是如何運作的。我們知道，當我們制定營銷計劃時，它們往往會對印度的用戶增長產生直接影響。考慮到該地區 COVID 的情況，我們在印度的第二季度並沒有真正花錢。因此，隨著我們增加一些廣告，在下半年增加一些支出，假設其中一些市場變得更好，我們覺得我們會看到一些 MAU 增長回到我們沒有的地方最後一個季度的支出。

I think those would sort of be the highlights of sort of how we've tried to triangulate between kind of markets with COVID and where things are better and worse and how they've impacted kind of our engagement metrics and our MAU growth.

我認為這些將成為我們如何嘗試在具有 COVID 的市場類型之間進行三角測量以及情況好壞以及它們如何影響我們的參與度指標和 MAU 增長的亮點。

All right. Our next question is going to come from Matt Thornton, another one on MAUs.

好的。我們的下一個問題將來自 Matt Thornton，另一個關於 MAU 的問題。

Wondering if you could expand on or quantify the impact of the intake issue you experienced with a third-party platform? And again, what gives you confidence that slower MAU growth is a function of COVID as opposed to a function of price increases, competition and/or saturation?

想知道您是否可以擴展或量化您在第三方平台上遇到的攝入問題的影響？再一次，是什麼讓您相信 MAU 增長放緩是 COVID 的結果，而不是價格上漲、競爭和/或飽和的結果？

So I'll take the first part and I guess I'll let Daniel take over the second part. So with the third-party platform, that was an issue with e-mail verifications between us and the third party. In full disclosure, this was an issue on our end. We made a change that was not caught soon enough, and we believe it had an impact on growth. The estimate right now was about 1 million to 2 million of MAU growth was impacted by the friction created by this e-mail verification change. It's since been corrected and shouldn't impact -- should not be an impact in Q3.

所以我將負責第一部分，我想我會讓丹尼爾接管第二部分。因此，對於第三方平台，這是我們與第三方之間的電子郵件驗證問題。坦率地說，這是我們這邊的問題。我們做出了一項沒有及時發現的變化，我們相信它對增長產生了影響。目前估計約有 100 萬至 200 萬的 MAU 增長受到此電子郵件驗證更改所造成的摩擦的影響。它已經得到糾正，不應該影響——不應該對第三季度產生影響。

In terms of the first half of the second part of that question, again, talking about COVID, I think I mentioned it in the last question. I will say, we obviously don't think it's price increases because our subscriber growth was actually slightly better than expected. So price increases would really have a bigger impact on subscriber growth as opposed to free user growth. And then maybe I'll let Daniel talk about sort of competition and saturation.

關於該問題第二部分的前半部分，再次談論 COVID，我想我在上一個問題中提到了它。我會說，我們顯然不認為這是價格上漲，因為我們的訂戶增長實際上略好於預期。因此，與免費用戶增長相比，價格上漲對用戶增長的影響確實更大。然後也許我會讓丹尼爾談談競爭和飽和。

Yes. I mean as Paul kind of outlined both in this question and the last one, most of the underperformance we saw were in sort of emerging markets and not sort of Western markets. So as it goes to the question of saturation, et cetera, those are also in markets where we're in much earlier stages of growth rather than the sort of bigger markets like the U.S. and most of Europe as well.

是的。我的意思是，正如保羅在這個問題和最後一個問題中所概述的那樣，我們看到的大多數表現不佳的市場都是新興市場，而不是西方市場。因此，當談到飽和等問題時，這些市場也處於我們處於早期增長階段的市場，而不是像美國和歐洲大部分地區這樣更大的市場。

And then as competition goes, I still look at all the leading indicators. Our engagement is up. NPS scores looking super healthy compared to competitive set, et cetera. So we feel really, really good about where we are from a competitive standpoint. We see a strong demand for Spotify really across the world. But obviously, as we said, going into the year, 2021 will have a higher degree of variability and especially for a global company like Spotify, where we have so many regions that are all in different stages of maturity. And I really think that's what you're seeing here. And just to contextualize it even further, it's really been playing out over a quarter. So I look at it more as a bump on the road than anything else, and because we've had such a strong 2020 year. So if I'm disappointed about anything, it's probably just we should have seen it coming more in the forecasting, but it's obviously very difficult to forecast these things. But I feel really, really good about our long-term growth prospect and that hasn't changed.

然後隨著競爭的進行，我仍然會關注所有領先指標。我們訂婚了。與競爭組等相比，NPS 得分看起來非常健康。因此，從競爭的角度來看，我們對自己所處的位置感到非常非常滿意。我們看到全世界對 Spotify 的強烈需求。但顯然，正如我們所說，進入 2021 年將有更高程度的可變性，尤其是對於像 Spotify 這樣的全球公司來說，我們有這麼多地區都處於不同的成熟階段。我真的認為這就是你在這裡看到的。只是為了進一步了解它，它真的已經玩了超過四分之一。所以我把它看作是路上的顛簸，而不是其他任何事情，因為我們經歷瞭如此強勁的 2020 年。因此，如果我對任何事情感到失望，那可能只是我們應該在預測中更多地看到它，但顯然很難預測這些事情。但我對我們的長期增長前景感覺非常非常好，而且這一點沒有改變。

All right. Next question is going to come from Mike Morris. How did churn compare for subscribers seeing price increases during the first half of '21 versus those who didn't? Has it varied meaningfully by market? And what's your view of future price increase potential for standard subscribers or additional increases for other plans?

好的。下一個問題將來自 Mike Morris。在 21 年上半年看到價格上漲的訂戶與沒有看到價格上漲的訂戶相比，流失情況如何？它是否因市場而異？您對標準訂戶未來的價格上漲潛力或其他計劃的額外上漲有何看法？

Yes. So churn was down year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter, which is great. We don't get into specifics about regions or geographies or products. I will say that in the markets where we increase prices, things performed in line with expectations, if not slightly better. There was, in terms of thinking about things from a gross intake perspective or from a churn perspective, again, everything was sort of in line or slightly better. So nothing there to call out at all in terms of an impact from price increases. We are continuing to roll this out. We've tested in a number of markets. I'm not really going to comment on whether or not we'll roll out into more markets or more standard plan or family plan, but you can imagine we're going to continue to test and experiment with all different offerings.

是的。因此，客戶流失率同比下降，環比下降，這很好。我們不會深入了解有關地區、地理或產品的細節。我要說的是，在我們提高價格的市場中，事情的表現符合預期，如果不是略好的話。再次，從總攝入量的角度或從流失的角度考慮問題，一切都符合或稍好一些。因此，就價格上漲的影響而言，根本沒有什麼可說的。我們正在繼續推出這個。我們已經在多個市場進行了測試。我真的不會評論我們是否會推出更多市場或更標準的計劃或家庭計劃，但你可以想像我們將繼續測試和試驗所有不同的產品。

And again, we're excited about how the trends have been so far in the markets where we have raised prices.

再一次，我們對我們提高價格的市場到目前為止的趨勢感到興奮。

Just maybe to iterate on the strategy here. The strategy for us is really all focused on increasing engagement. If we increase the engagement, the value per hour increases of our customers. And as we're seeing that, we will be proactive in raising prices when we believe that ability exists. So it's more aligned with the engagement of our customers rather than maybe some may have speculated competitive sets, et cetera. And that's what we feel so good about when we have raised prices is both the engagement staying very, very strong and the fact that, as we've said many, many times, we have more than 2 or even 3x and sometimes the amount of engagement per user than some of our competitors do.

也許只是在這裡迭代策略。我們的戰略實際上都集中在增加參與度上。如果我們增加參與度，我們客戶的每小時價值就會增加。正如我們所看到的那樣，當我們相信存在這種能力時，我們將主動提高價格。因此，它更符合我們客戶的參與，而不是一些人可能推測的競爭組合等。當我們提高價格時，我們感到非常高興的是，參與度保持非常非常強勁，而且正如我們已經說過很多次的事實，我們有超過 2 倍甚至 3 倍，有時甚至是數量與我們的一些競爭對手相比，每個用戶的參與度更高。

And obviously, that means that there's a very, very loyal customer base there. And I think that's what you've seen play out in the business and why subscriber growth has been so strong as well.

顯然，這意味著那裡有非常非常忠誠的客戶群。我認為這就是您在業務中看到的結果，也是訂閱者增長如此強勁的原因。

Right. Next question is from Justin Patterson directed to Daniel. At Stream On, Daniel, you talked about 1 billion user opportunity for Spotify. Given the degree of growth that implies, what are the key investments you need to make to deliver on that target?

正確的。下一個問題是 Justin Patterson 向 Daniel 提出的。在 Stream On，丹尼爾，你談到了 Spotify 的 10 億用戶機會。鑑於這意味著增長的程度，您需要進行哪些關鍵投資才能實現該目標？

Yes. I touched upon this in the opening remarks. But for us, it's -- we've grown in the past few years from about 1 million creators to now more than 8 million creators. But the opportunity in front of us is really to get to more than 50 million creators. And as part of that, it's really all about getting those audiences, of those 50 million potential creators, to start listening to that content, becoming super fans and creating more and more tools for the creators and fans to start engaging with each other, turning that engagement into monetization opportunities and so on.

是的。我在開場白中提到了這一點。但對我們來說，它是——我們在過去幾年裡從大約 100 萬創作者發展到現在超過 800 萬創作者。但擺在我們面前的機會真的是要接觸到超過 5000 萬的創作者。作為其中的一部分，這實際上是讓 5000 萬潛在創作者中的觀眾開始收聽該內容，成為超級粉絲，並為創作者和粉絲創造越來越多的工具，讓他們開始相互交流，轉向參與貨幣化機會等等。

So that's really the kind of main strategy. And a lot of that comes down to a combination of platform improvements, discoverability of just being able to showcase and seeing new content. And then obviously, the content team and onboarding new creators and finding compelling ways to get creators to feel like Spotify is the #1 platform. Because when that happens, it is a flywheel that turns into more creators turns into more users and more users turns into more creators and so on and so forth.

所以這確實是一種主要策略。其中很多歸結為平台改進的組合，以及能夠展示和查看新內容的可發現性。然後很明顯，內容團隊和新的創作者入職並找到令人信服的方法讓創作者覺得 Spotify 是第一平台。因為當這種情況發生時，它就像一個飛輪，會變成更多的創作者，變成更多的用戶，更多的用戶變成更多的創作者，等等。

All right. Next question from Mario Lu. Can you provide more details on both the strategy and economics of Spotify Open Access? Are partners expected to pay Spotify a revenue share of subscriptions? Or is the main goal simply to increase engagement on the Spotify app overall?

好的。下一個問題來自 Mario Lu。您能否提供有關 Spotify Open Access 的戰略和經濟方面的更多詳細信息？合作夥伴是否需要向 Spotify 支付訂閱收入分成？還是主要目標僅僅是提高 Spotify 應用程序的整體參與度？

Yes. So really, the idea between Spotify Open Access is to provide an open platform for creators. So we want to enable as much audio as possible, and we view it as we want to be the audio platform of the world. And we have multiple of ways for creators to engage with our platform. One of them is obviously the Open Access, where we don't partake and take any revenue and the creator themselves can choose how they best want to monetize their audience, or in the case they already had a paid audience like Ben Thompson, they can enable that audience to listen friction-free on the Spotify app without sort of any hiccups.

是的。所以說真的，Spotify Open Access 的想法是為創作者提供一個開放的平台。因此，我們希望啟用盡可能多的音頻，並且我們將其視為我們希望成為世界的音頻平台。我們有多種方式讓創作者參與我們的平台。其中之一顯然是 Open Access，我們不參與也不收取任何收入，創作者自己可以選擇他們最想通過觀眾獲利的方式，或者如果他們已經有像 Ben Thompson 這樣的付費觀眾，他們可以使聽眾能夠在 Spotify 應用程序上暢聽無阻，不會有任何問題。

And then to the extent that the creator needs help in both create -- getting more customers to come to them and help in better friction on payment, et cetera, we do also offer that opportunity, and those are added revenue opportunities as well. So the better way to think about it is we're primarily doing it to increase engagement and to draw new users there, but I am 100% confident that, that also leads to more business opportunities for Spotify long term as we'll have more and more platform tools, whether that be advertising, whether it be payment options that we can offer or even in the future live rooms, et cetera, that we can offer via the platform. I think all of those are exciting new revenue possibilities.

然後，如果創作者在創作方面需要幫助——讓更多的客戶來找他們，並幫助減少付款摩擦，等等，我們也確實提供了這個機會，這些也是增加收入的機會。因此，更好的思考方式是，我們這樣做主要是為了提高參與度並吸引新用戶，但我 100% 相信，從長遠來看，這也會為 Spotify 帶來更多商機，因為我們將擁有更多以及更多的平台工具，無論是廣告，還是我們可以提供的支付選項，甚至是我們可以通過平台提供的未來直播間等等。我認為所有這些都是令人興奮的新收入可能性。

And actually, it looks like Mario has a follow-up on this one. With the Greenroom soft launch in mid-June, can you explain why you decided to create a separate app for the live audio experience versus embedding it within the core Spotify app?

實際上，馬里奧似乎對此有後續行動。隨著 6 月中旬 Greenroom 的試運行，您能解釋一下為什麼您決定為現場音頻體驗創建一個單獨的應用程序，而不是將其嵌入到核心 Spotify 應用程序中嗎？

Yes. I mean the origins of this is an acquisition we did earlier in this year, and I'm actually very proud of the team. We pretty much made the acquisition a quarter later. We're able to incorporate it into Spotify. You have a consistent refresh of the product, stabilize it for a size, Spotify-sized audience, et cetera. That's very much the reason why this is sort of a separate app. And I think you should expect there will be more and more tie-ins to the main Spotify app, too. And obviously, we'll leverage our existing distribution on Spotify, too.

是的。我的意思是這是我們今年早些時候進行的一項收購的起源，我實際上為團隊感到非常自豪。我們幾乎在一個季度後完成了收購。我們能夠將它整合到 Spotify 中。你有一個一致的產品更新，穩定它的規模，Spotify 規模的觀眾等等。這就是為什麼這是一個單獨的應用程序的原因。而且我認為你應該預料到主 Spotify 應用程序也會有越來越多的搭配。顯然，我們也將利用我們在 Spotify 上的現有發行版。

But this feels like a great way to learn, experiment and iterate much faster than if we had to wait for a full-on integration into the main app, given the difference in the creator and consumer experience.

但這感覺是一種學習、試驗和迭代的好方法，比我們必須等待完全集成到主應用程序要快得多，因為創作者和消費者的體驗不同。

Okay. We've got another question from Ben Swinburne. You called out a revenue mix shift towards podcasts, among other things, benefiting gross margins. Previously, you had discussed podcast investments this year as a greater drag versus last year. Has something changed? Is the business now at a scale that it should drive gross margins going forward?

好的。我們收到了 Ben Swinburne 的另一個問題。你呼籲將收入組合轉向播客，除此之外，還有利於毛利率。此前，您曾討論過今年的播客投資與去年相比受到了更大的拖累。有什麼改變嗎？該業務現在的規模是否應該推動毛利率向前發展？

Yes. So a big chunk of that is a couple of things. One is revenue exceeded expectations on the podcasting side, led both organically as well as the acquisition of Megaphone and some of the inventory for Jerry and others, which was super impactful.

是的。所以其中很大一部分是兩件事。一是播客方面的收入超出了預期，既有機地帶動了 Megaphone 的收購，也帶動了 Jerry 和其他人的一些庫存，這產生了巨大的影響。

As Daniel mentioned, its opening podcasting revenue growth was up 627%. It was actually up close to 700% on an FX-neutral basis. On an organic basis, it was up almost 200% FX-neutral. So the revenue growth there was better than we expected, which led to better margins on that side. On the investment side, I would say it was in line, maybe a little bit lighter than we thought in terms of the quarter. That has more to do with just quarterly, say, variances with respect to content spend than it does any shift in terms of that overall investment we'll make for 2021, there's some of the shift got pushed out to the back half of the year. But in general, it was really led by just the leverage you get on having more upside on the podcasting revenue side.

正如丹尼爾所提到的，其開播播客收入增長了 627%。在外匯中性的基礎上，它實際上接近 700%。在有機基礎上，它上漲了近 200%，不受外匯影響。因此，那裡的收入增長好於我們的預期，這導致了這方面的利潤率更高。在投資方面，我想說這是符合預期的，可能比我們在本季度的預期要輕一些。這更多地與內容支出的季度差異有關，而不是我們將在 2021 年進行的總體投資的任何變化，有些變化被推遲到今年下半年.但總的來說，它實際上是由你在播客收入方面獲得更多優勢所獲得的槓桿作用所引領的。

In terms of how it drives gross margins going forward, I wouldn't necessarily say it's an inflection, I'd say it's a strong indicator of where we can go when advertising is strong and where we can go with the leverage on the podcasting side over time. We're going to continue to invest in the business, but I'm super pleased with how we performed in the quarter.

就它如何推動未來的毛利率而言，我不一定會說這是一個拐點，我會說這是一個強有力的指標，表明當廣告強勁時我們可以去哪裡，以及我們可以在播客方面發揮槓桿作用隨著時間的推移。我們將繼續投資於該業務，但我對我們在本季度的表現非常滿意。

Okay. Next question on Rich Greenfield, also related to podcasting. We sense a shift in your podcast strategy from studio content that's available on all podcast platforms to high-profile exclusives like Joe Rogan, Alex Cooper, Dax Shepard, both in the U.S. and around the world. What's changed with your strategy?

好的。下一個關於 Rich Greenfield 的問題，也與播客有關。我們感覺到您的播客策略發生了轉變，從在所有播客平台上提供的工作室內容轉變為喬·羅根、亞歷克斯·庫珀、戴克斯·謝潑德等知名獨家播客，在美國和世界各地均是如此。你的策略有什麼變化？

Rich, I believe happy birthday, by the way. Yes. I don't think really anything has kind of changed. I think we have been experimenting with Wintering, we have been experimenting with Exclusive. And we've said for quite a long time that, obviously, we want more and more of the listening to happen only on Spotify.

里奇，順便說一句，我相信生日快樂。是的。我認為真的沒有任何改變。我認為我們一直在嘗試 Wintering，我們一直在嘗試 Exclusive。我們已經說過很長時間了，很明顯，我們希望越來越多的聆聽只發生在 Spotify 上。

So it's been kind of more of a natural evolution to drive it towards that end. I do think, again, from a strategy perspective, we are very much aiming to be a very open platform all along. And the most important job for us is to be a great partner to all the creators that we have in the ecosystem. So I don't think it rolls out and say that we would only do exclusives hard on. I think you're going to see us do many different types of deals. But where possible, we would obviously opt to take it fully exclusive. But we're going to be very opportunistic about that going forward.

因此，將其推向這一目標更像是一種自然的演變。我確實認為，從戰略的角度來看，我們一直致力於成為一個非常開放的平台。對我們來說最重要的工作是成為生態系統中所有創作者的優秀合作夥伴。所以我不認為它會推出並說我們只會努力做獨家產品。我想你會看到我們做很多不同類型的交易。但在可能的情況下，我們顯然會選擇完全排他性。但我們將對未來採取非常機會主義的態度。

All right. Next question from Mike Morris, another one on gross margin. What are the factors that drove 2Q gross margin above guide to the 26.5% result that are not expected to recur? Or said another way, what are the incremental headwinds anticipated in the second half of the year, given that the high end of third quarter and fourth quarter guidance is below the 26.5%?

好的。 Mike Morris 的下一個問題，另一個關於毛利率的問題。是什麼因素導致第二季度毛利率高於預期，達到 26.5% 的預期結果？或者換句話說，考慮到第三季度的高端和第四季度的指導低於 26.5%，預計下半年會出現哪些不利因素？

Yes. So let me just unpack gross margins in the quarter in general because -- so we reported a gross margin of 28.4%, and we've talked about sort of more of an adjusted organic number of 26.5%. So the delta between those 2 was the reversal of some publishing accruals. There were onetime in the quarter, but I will say if you think about what we had done, we take a very conservative view of how we play publishing globally, where sometimes it's a little bit of a challenge to make sure you're paying people.

是的。因此，讓我簡單介紹一下本季度的總體毛利率，因為 - 我們報告的毛利率為 28.4%，我們已經討論了更多調整後的有機數字 26.5%。因此，這兩者之間的增量是一些出版應計費用的逆轉。本季度有一次，但我會說，如果你考慮一下我們所做的事情，我們對我們如何在全球範圍內進行出版持非常保守的看法，有時確保你付錢給人們是一個挑戰.

So we tend to accrue at rates that are even higher and more conservative than we need, and as we're able to get comfortable that we're paying the right amounts, we reverse those accruals. And there's been some work in Europe in particular to get this accomplished in a way that was satisfactory for everybody. We can get into the details offline with the IR team, if you'd like.

因此，我們傾向於以比我們需要的更高和更保守的利率累積，並且當我們能夠放心我們支付的金額正確時，我們就會扭轉這些應計費用。歐洲特別開展了一些工作，以讓每個人都滿意的方式完成這項工作。如果您願意，我們可以與 IR 團隊離線了解詳細信息。

But so in every quarter for like the last 2 years, we've actually had about 20, 30 basis points of a hit to gross margin that we haven't necessarily called out because we were accruing more than we actually potentially might have to pay out to be conservative. We now feel comfortable about the proper payout so we're able to reverse that accrual, and that was the big 190 basis point gain there. The rest is that's about 2/3 of the upside relative to expectations. The rest of it was a couple of factors. One I mentioned, which was the better revenue on top of podcasting, which helped. We did benefit on some of the other cost of revenue a little bit more than we thought, so payment fees, streaming delivery, customer service, those types of things, where we got a little bit better leverage than we thought. So the team has done a really good job on those angles. And so it's really been a combination of the better revenue growth on the one hand, which helped on the margin side and then also on the other cost of revenue side.

但是，在過去兩年的每個季度中，我們實際上已經對毛利率造成了大約 20、30 個基點的打擊，我們沒有必要指出這一點，因為我們的收益超過了我們實際可能需要支付的費用保守。我們現在對適當的支出感到滿意，因此我們能夠扭轉這種應計，這是那裡的 190 個基點的巨大收益。其餘的是相對於預期的大約 2/3 的上行空間。其餘的是幾個因素。我提到的一個是播客帶來的更好的收入，這很有幫助。我們確實從其他一些收入成本中受益，比我們想像的要多一點，所以支付費用、流媒體傳輸、客戶服務，這些類型的事情，我們在這些方面的槓桿作用比我們想像的要好一點。所以團隊在這些角度上做得非常好。因此，這實際上是一方面更好的收入增長的結合，這在利潤方面有所幫助，然後在收入的其他成本方面也有所幫助。

In terms of going forward, so now that, that accrual has been reversed, that actually gives us a benefit moving forward, it's about EUR 20 million or so a year. So that will help in terms of a positive. And then the negatives are, as I said, there's always some seasonality on the content side, so there'll be potentially more spend on the content in the back half of the year than the front end of the year, and we're not expecting quite the same leverage on some of those other costs of revenue that we saw in Q2.

就前進而言，現在，應計費用已經逆轉，這實際上給我們帶來了前進的好處，每年大約 2000 萬歐元左右。因此，這將在積極方面有所幫助。然後負面影響是，正如我所說，內容方面總是存在一些季節性，因此下半年在內容上的支出可能會比年初多，而且我們不會預計我們在第二季度看到的一些其他收入成本具有完全相同的槓桿作用。

All right. Next question from Doug Anmuth. MAUs have been light the last 2 quarters, and it usually takes 12 to 18 months to convert to a premium sub. Does that slower top of funnel growth create premium sub risk in future periods?

好的。 Doug Anmuth 的下一個問題。過去 2 個季度的 MAU 一直很低，通常需要 12 到 18 個月才能轉換為高級訂閱。漏斗頂部增長放緩是否會在未來期間產生溢價子風險？

Maybe I'll start here and then, Paul, you can add. So I think it's really important to contextualize that most of our lightness has really been due to an outperformance in 2020 more than anything else. And even despite all of that, as I said in some of my opening remarks and part of the reason why I feel really good about things, including, of course, all the leading indicators pointing positively is that we -- when you look at the sort of the last 2 years, we're still on track of outpacing those average -- the average growth of those past 2 years, we're still on track of outpacing that in this year.

也許我會從這裡開始，然後 Paul，你可以補充一下。因此，我認為將我們的大部分輕盈真正歸因於 2020 年的出色表現比其他任何事情都更重要。儘管如此，正如我在一些開場白中所說的那樣，以及我對事情感覺非常好的部分原因，當然包括所有指向積極的領先指標是我們 - 當你看在過去的兩年裡，我們仍然有望超過這些平均水平——過去兩年的平均增長，我們今年仍有望超過這些平均水平。

So overall, top line MAU growth is healthy. We're just comparing it to an exceptional 2020, and that's clearly on us. We should have realized some of this variability going into the year, et cetera. But I feel really good about that. And then the second part of that is leading indicators, so looking super healthy; engagement, super strong; podcast engagement, super strong. So just overall, plenty of runway left and we're still early in going from linear radio to on-demand audio. So I feel really good about the sort of future path to 1 billion-plus users when it comes to Spotify.

因此，總的來說，一線 MAU 增長是健康的。我們只是將它與非凡的 2020 年進行比較，這顯然在我們身上。我們應該已經意識到這一年的一些變化，等等。但我對此感覺很好。然後第二部分是領先指標，看起來非常健康；訂婚，超強；播客參與度，超強。所以總的來說，還有很多跑道，我們仍然處於從線性無線電到點播音頻的早期階段。因此，當談到 Spotify 時，我對未來通往 10 億多用戶的道路感到非常滿意。

Yes. And I would just add on top to highlight what Daniel said. If you look at the 2020 and '21 combined and think about the sort of average growth in MAU, it exceeds any other year we've ever done. And so again, we still feel really good that the overall sort of long-term slope of the growth in users is on track and healthy. And then on top of that, some of the variability has been in markets where we would expect they would have higher free users for a longer period of time anyway. There are countries, again, like India where our expectation is you're playing a long game there. And while we expect subscriber growth there and we're optimistic, you know it's going to take a long period of time. So one quarter here or there of growth is really not going to impact the overall trajectory of where we're expecting. So at this point, we don't think that it should impact any of our subscriber expectations for at a minimum this year, and then we'll talk about next year when we give guidance later on in the year.

是的。我只想在最上面添加以強調 Daniel 所說的話。如果你看看 2020 年和 21 年的結合，並考慮 MAU 的平均增長，它超過了我們做過的任何其他年份。因此，我們仍然感覺非常好，因為用戶增長的整體長期斜率走上正軌且健康。最重要的是，市場存在一些可變性，我們預計他們無論如何都會在更長的時間內擁有更多的免費用戶。同樣，有些國家，例如印度，我們期望您在那裡打一場持久戰。雖然我們預計那裡的訂戶會增長並且我們很樂觀，但你知道這需要很長時間。因此，這里或那里四分之一的增長真的不會影響我們預期的整體軌跡。所以在這一點上，我們認為它至少不會影響我們今年的任何訂戶期望，然後我們將在今年晚些時候提供指導時討論明年。

Okay. We've got another question from Rich Greenfield, this one on Marketplace. Can you help us understand Discovery Mode? Walk us through an example of how it's being used and how that leads to 40% more listeners for artists utilizing it.

好的。我們從 Rich Greenfield 那裡收到了另一個問題，這個問題來自 Marketplace。您能幫助我們了解發現模式嗎？向我們舉例說明它是如何被使用的，以及它如何使使用它的藝術家的聽眾增加 40%。

Yes. So the first way to contextualize Discovery Mode is it's really a marketing tool for artists and labels. So the great thing here is that it's really a result-based marketing tool where you're really only paying Spotify if you find success. Hence, why we're highlighting the success from Discovery Mode here. So it's really a marketing tool where you opt in, you choose the program. You do see the downstream implications of how many more listeners were able to generate because of this, how many more downstream follows and subscriptions am I able to generate? And labels that are in this beta are now very, very active on it, and we're seeing a very healthy sort of retaining rates of new bookings through the tool as well.

是的。因此，將發現模式置於背景中的第一種方法是，它實際上是藝術家和唱片公司的營銷工具。所以這裡最棒的是，它真的是一個基於結果的營銷工具，如果你發現成功，你真的只需要向 Spotify 付費。因此，我們為什麼要在這裡強調發現模式的成功。所以它真的是一種營銷工具，你可以選擇加入，你選擇程序。您確實看到了下游的影響，即因此能夠產生更多的聽眾，我能夠產生更多的下游關注和訂閱？在這個測試版中的標籤現在非常非常活躍，我們也看到通過該工具的新預訂保留率非常健康。

And we're just looking at making that easier and smoother in this beta period. And hopefully, that will lead to even better results, which, of course, means even better adoption.

我們只是想在這個測試階段讓這一切變得更容易、更順暢。希望這會帶來更好的結果，當然，這意味著更好的採用。

Okay. Next question comes from Steven Cahall. How should we think about your ARPU trajectory on a constant currency basis as you move through price increases? Should we expect ARPU to expand from here? Are there any plans for a base price increase, excluding Family or Duo? And then finally, are there any notable churn impacts from price increases?

好的。下一個問題來自 Steven Cahall。當您經歷價格上漲時，我們應該如何以恆定貨幣為基礎考慮您的 ARPU 軌跡？我們應該期望 ARPU 從這裡擴展嗎？除了 Family 或 Duo 之外，是否有提高基本價格的計劃？最後，價格上漲是否會對客戶流失產生顯著影響？

Yes. So I think I answered the first 2 already. So the gross intake churn, right on plan, if not slightly better in markets where we've changed prices. In terms of thinking about ARPU, yes, so we were up in Q2 on an FX-neutral basis very, very modestly, but we were up in the first quarter, I think, in 3, 4 years as far back as I looked where we had positive ARPU, so that's a great trend. We do expect ARPU on an FX-neutral basis to be positive in the back half of the year. That is a combination of the follow-through or the flow-through of the price increases, somewhat offset by some of the pressure we get from product mix and geographic mix. But in general, we do see ARPU being up modestly for the back half of the year, again, on -- I'm sorry, on an FX-neutral basis.

是的。所以我想我已經回答了前兩個問題。因此，在我們改變價格的市場中，如果不是稍微好一點的話，總攝入量流失就按計劃進行。在考慮 ARPU 方面，是的，所以我們在第二季度在外匯中性的基礎上非常、非常適度地上升，但我們在第一季度上升了，我認為，在 3、4 年前，據我觀察我們的 ARPU 為正，所以這是一個很好的趨勢。我們確實預計下半年在外匯中性基礎上的 ARPU 將為正。這是價格上漲的後續或流通的結合，在一定程度上被我們從產品組合和地理組合中獲得的一些壓力所抵消。但總的來說，我們確實看到 ARPU 在今年下半年小幅上升，再次，對不起，在外匯中性的基礎上。

Okay. Next question from Matt Thornton. Can you talk about what inning you're in with your Marketplace strategy overall? The momentum in artist, label, publisher feedback around sponsored recommendations in Discovery Mode, and how much of an opportunity or focus is Live?

好的。 Matt Thornton 的下一個問題。你能談談你的市場戰略總體上處於哪一局？藝術家、唱片公司、出版商對發現模式中讚助推薦的反饋勢頭，以及直播有多少機會或重點？

Yes. So as a European, I'll try to do my best imitation of what inning is what. But if I'd make an educated guess, I would say we're probably in the second or third inning. I have no idea, but that should indicate early in the journey, but like not starting. So it's still much -- very much early days. We're past the point of launching this. We're getting results. We're seeing very, very strong sort of leading indicators around both results that partners that are participating in these programs are giving us and the feedback around how we should develop this even further. A lot of this just comes down to a lot of details around how labels and artists work together in understanding that and building out products that are bespoke to that.

是的。所以作為一個歐洲人，我會盡量模仿什麼局是什麼。但如果我做出有根據的猜測，我會說我們可能在第二局或第三局。我不知道，但這應該表明在旅程的早期，但就像沒有開始一樣。所以現在還很早。我們已經過了發射點。我們正在取得成果。我們看到了非常非常強大的領先指標，這些指標圍繞著參與這些計劃的合作夥伴給我們的結果以及關於我們應該如何進一步發展它的反饋。其中很多都歸結為很多關於標籤和藝術家如何共同理解並構建定制產品的細節。

And to an extent, that's probably one of the biggest sort of surprises for us is just how much data sharing between labels and agents and managers and building out almost like an enterprise suite for products where you have certain types of rights for certain types of people on the artist team, certain types of dashboards that should only be available for other types of teams. So a lot of that stuff is the stuff that we've now been building out over these past few quarters. And that's certainly like new, and that's what happens in the customer development phases. You're actively going in and learning more about the customer needs and understanding that. But the good news is, usually, when you're past that, you have a product that's highly tailored, highly bespoke to that type of audience. And I feel really, really good about the feedback that I'm seeing. Of course, as with anything that goes with our music partners, there's always a lot of controversy around almost anything we do at this point just because of the size we are for the industry and how much of an impact any single change that we do.

在某種程度上，這可能是我們最大的驚喜之一，就是標籤、代理人和經理之間共享了多少數據，並構建了幾乎像產品的企業套件，您對特定類型的人擁有特定類型的權利在美工團隊中，某些類型的儀表板應該只適用於其他類型的團隊。所以很多東西都是我們在過去幾個季度中一直在構建的東西。這肯定是新的，這就是客戶開發階段發生的事情。您正在積極參與並更多地了解客戶需求並了解這一點。但好消息是，通常情況下，當你超越這一點時，你就會擁有一款高度定制、高度定制的產品，以滿足這類受眾的需求。我對所看到的反饋感覺真的非常好。當然，就像我們的音樂合作夥伴所做的任何事情一樣，我們在這一點上所做的幾乎所有事情總是存在很多爭議，只是因為我們在行業中的規模以及我們所做的任何單一改變的影響有多大。

So even shifts in how our algorithms work massively impact almost all marketing teams on labels and artists, too. So we get a lot of feedback on even those types of changes, too. But I think that's just more of a sort of a natural evolution as goes to just the scale and the size of Spotify and how important we are for the music industry.

因此，即使是我們算法工作方式的轉變也會對幾乎所有唱片公司和藝術家的營銷團隊產生巨大影響。因此，即使是這些類型的更改，我們也收到了很多反饋。但我認為這更像是一種自然演變，就像 Spotify 的規模和規模以及我們對音樂行業的重要性一樣。

And then Live, again, I talk about this, but I think the most important thing really is we're very, very creator focused. And so Live, if you think about music creators, it is today a vast majority of all the income that normally flows through to an artist. So to the extent that Spotify can be helpful in driving Live outcomes, that's going to materially improve the earnings of an artist, and that obviously means that we can be an even more better partner to artists that can then drive preferences and get artists engaged even more on the Spotify platform. So it's a long term, very important focus of ours. To the extent that it will have an impact on the business side, that's not how we work. What we're doing really is we're focusing on the needs for the constituents and building amazing experiences. And thereafter, we tend to focus on how do we monetize that, too.

然後是 Live，我再次談到這一點，但我認為最重要的是我們非常非常關注創作者。所以 Live，如果你想到音樂創作者，今天通常流向藝術家的所有收入的絕大部分。因此，就 Spotify 有助於推動 Live 結果的程度而言，這將顯著提高藝術家的收入，這顯然意味著我們可以成為藝術家更好的合作夥伴，從而推動偏好並讓藝術家參與甚至更多在 Spotify 平台上。所以這是我們的一個長期的、非常重要的重點。就其對業務方面產生影響而言，這不是我們的工作方式。我們真正在做的是關注選民的需求並打造令人驚嘆的體驗。此後，我們也傾向於關注如何將其貨幣化。

So I just wanted to be clear upfront about that, that you should expect us to try to build amazing products that will get -- drive meaningful outcomes for our partners, and it's only at that point that it starts flowing through to business outcomes for Spotify, too.

所以我只想預先明確這一點，你應該期待我們嘗試打造令人驚嘆的產品，這些產品將為我們的合作夥伴帶來有意義的成果，而且只有在那個時候它才會開始流向 Spotify 的業務成果， 也。

And I would just add 2 things. One, just dovetailing to what Daniel said, everything about that is 100%, but it did actually impact gross margins, and I should have said that in my earlier comments. So there was a slight benefit, a slightly decent benefit to the gross margin outperformance. So I mentioned the better revenue and I mentioned the other cost of revenue. Marketplace was also another driver of improved gross margins in the quarter, and I should have mentioned that earlier. And then the second point is for those of you non-Americans on the call, that's about the 15th minute of a football game in terms of translating innings into football games.

我只想添加兩件事。第一，與 Daniel 所說的相吻合，一切都是 100%，但它確實影響了毛利率，我應該在我之前的評論中說過這一點。所以有一點好處，毛利率表現略有不錯的好處。所以我提到了更好的收入，我提到了其他收入成本。 Marketplace 也是本季度毛利率提高的另一個驅動因素，我應該早點提到這一點。然後第二點是針對你們這些非美國人的，就將局數轉化為足球比賽而言，這大約是一場足球比賽的第 15 分鐘。

Great. Now I understand you. I like to use football too, by the way. I didn't call it soccer so appreciate it.

偉大的。現在我明白你了。順便說一句，我也喜歡踢足球。我沒把它叫做足球，所以很感激。

Okay. Next question comes from Doug Anmuth related to podcasting. How would you characterize the early returns on the Spotify Audience Network, the Open Access Platform and Streaming Ad Insertion? And what are the next steps to boost their utilization and monetization?

好的。下一個問題來自與播客相關的 Doug Anmuth。您如何描述 Spotify 受眾網絡、開放訪問平台和流媒體廣告插入的早期回報？提高它們的利用率和貨幣化的下一步是什麼？

Yes. So I think the early returns has been a great creator excitement, which usually translates to adoption. Some of these are more mature than others. So OAP, very early days, still building it out, rolling it out but great excitement among partners. SAI and SPAN, obviously, already are live today and even in the quarter, started impacting the results that we're seeing.

是的。所以我認為早期的回報讓創作者感到非常興奮，這通常會轉化為採用。其中一些比其他的更成熟。所以 OAP，在很早的時候，還在構建，推出，但合作夥伴之間非常興奮。顯然，SAI 和 SPAN 今天甚至在本季度已經上線，開始影響我們看到的結果。

But for me, the most important thing, again, comes down to focus on our constituents that we're serving, providing great tools for them. When that happens, that then leads to better outcomes for Spotify. And maybe if I zoom out and just kind of give some context, I think really, the big thing you all as analysts should focus on is the shift of Spotify as a premium subscription music service to an audio platform. And that audio platform means that the business model fundamentally of Spotify now is very different than what it had been in the past. And you're starting to see that shift come through with ads. But I suspect over time, there'll be many more tools and services that we are driving and delivering here that will then all start impacting the overall results in different ways of the business going forward.

但對我來說，最重要的事情再次歸結為關注我們所服務的選民，為他們提供出色的工具。當這種情況發生時，就會為 Spotify 帶來更好的結果。也許如果我縮小範圍並提供一些背景信息，我認為真的，作為分析師應該關注的一件大事是 Spotify 從付費訂閱音樂服務向音頻平台的轉變。這個音頻平台意味著 Spotify 現在的商業模式與過去截然不同。你開始看到廣告帶來了這種轉變。但我懷疑隨著時間的推移，我們將在這裡推動和提供更多的工具和服務，然後它們將開始以不同的方式影響未來業務的整體結果。

And so when I, in my opening remarks, focused on that sort of shift on velocity for product improvements and platform improvements, that is, for me, perhaps one of the most important leading indicators for me about sort of having that kind of impact, both for creators and consumers that then leads to tangible benefits. But you should really expect us to be more investing in the platform side of Spotify, which will then lead to lots and lots of really exciting business outcomes for Spotify in the future, too.

因此，當我在開場白中重點關注產品改進和平台改進速度的這種轉變時，對我來說，這可能是關於產生這種影響的最重要的領先指標之一，對於創作者和消費者來說，這都會帶來實實在在的好處。但你真的應該期待我們在 Spotify 的平台方面投入更多，這也會在未來為 Spotify 帶來很多非常令人興奮的業務成果。

And then just I'll go -- Daniel at macro, I'll go a little micro here. If you look about at sort of SPAN and SAI, in particular, in terms of ad products in the quarter, as we mentioned, we had a really strong advertising quarter numbers, albeit expectations. We've seen through the implementation of some of these new products that sell-through rate was better than expected in the quarter and CPMs were also a little bit better than expected in the quarter. So we saw better utilization as well as better CPMs in the quarter.

然後我會去 - 丹尼爾在宏觀上，我會在這裡稍微微觀一下。如果你看一下 SPAN 和 SAI，特別是就本季度的廣告產品而言，正如我們提到的那樣，我們的廣告季度數字非常強勁，儘管是預期的。通過實施其中一些新產品，我們看到本季度的銷售率好於預期，每千次展示費用也略好於本季度的預期。因此，我們在本季度看到了更好的利用率和更好的每千次展示費用。

All right. We've got the next question from Hamilton Faber. Could you comment on recent press reports that Spotify is interested in becoming involved in live events? How easy would it be to scale in this space?

好的。下一個問題來自 Hamilton Faber。您能否評論最近有關 Spotify 有興趣參與現場活動的新聞報導？在這個空間中擴展有多容易？

Yes. And maybe by way of context, we've actually sort of depending on how you view it, been involved in the live space now for many, many years, both having as a feature the ability for artists to post upcoming concerts on the -- on their Spotify pages. But then subsequently, with our own playlist and brands like RapCaviar have been doing some shows with tens of thousands of people in attendance and having that all over the U.S. and U.K. and so on.

是的。也許從上下文的角度來看，我們實際上已經在某種程度上取決於你如何看待它，現在參與現場空間很多很多年，作為一項功能，藝術家可以在 -在他們的 Spotify 頁面上。但隨後，憑藉我們自己的播放列表和像 RapCaviar 這樣的品牌一直在做一些有數万人參加的節目，並且在美國和英國等地都有。

So we've been in this space for quite some time. Now I can't really comment on sort of product tests that we're doing. But as I mentioned in my previous comment, Live is a meaningful thing for many of our creators and it's something that we're excited about. And in the past quarter, as evident by some of the tests we did, we did some live concerts, digital live concerts and tested that and saw some really positive results from that and lots of excitement from our artist partners about Spotify helping out during COVID and providing more meaningful ways for them to monetize their fan base.

所以我們在這個領域已經有一段時間了。現在我不能真正評論我們正在進行的產品測試。但正如我在之前的評論中提到的，Live 對我們的許多創作者來說是一件有意義的事情，這讓我們感到興奮。在過去的一個季度，正如我們所做的一些測試所證明的那樣，我們進行了一些現場音樂會、數字現場音樂會並進行了測試，並從中看到了一些非常積極的結果，我們的藝術家合作夥伴對 Spotify 在 COVID 期間提供的幫助感到非常興奮並為他們提供更有意義的方式來從他們的粉絲群中獲利。

And I think that's in line with our strategy. To the extent that Live will have an even bigger impact, I think we're still an open platform. We want to work with as many partners as we can and provide as many opportunities for creators to create more ways to turn a listener into fans and turn fans into super fans and increase the monetization for those creators.

我認為這符合我們的戰略。就 Live 將產生更大影響而言，我認為我們仍然是一個開放平台。我們希望與盡可能多的合作夥伴合作，並為創作者提供盡可能多的機會，以創造更多的方式將聽眾變成粉絲，將粉絲變成超級粉絲，並增加這些創作者的貨幣化。

All right. Next question comes from Deepak and it's directed to Paul. Can you provide additional color on some of your assumptions in the second half outlook or guidance? You've renewed several promotional programs, but also have new ones such as TikTok. How are you thinking about contribution from these new programs, particularly as you potentially expand them into more markets?

好的。下一個問題來自 Deepak，並且是針對 Paul 的。您能否在下半年展望或指導中為您的一些假設提供額外的色彩？您已經更新了幾個促銷計劃，但也有新的促銷計劃，例如 TikTok。您如何看待這些新計劃的貢獻，特別是當您有可能將它們擴展到更多市場時？

Yes. I mean it's hard to talk about any one plan because we don't really do that. I would say, in general, we're excited about a number of new partnerships we have. They are all baked into our forecasts moving forward. Obviously, the newer ones are sometimes tougher to forecast because they are new and we don't have a track record or history in terms of success. I would say, in addition to the partnerships, which we're excited about, there'll be higher marketing expense in the second half of the year as well because we pulled back on some of that. So I think that's all factored into the guidance as well as kind of the trend lines we saw coming out of Q2 relative to the first half of Q2.

是的。我的意思是很難談論任何一個計劃，因為我們並沒有真正這樣做。我想說，總的來說，我們對我們擁有的許多新合作夥伴關係感到興奮。它們都融入了我們未來的預測中。顯然，較新的產品有時更難預測，因為它們是新產品，而且我們沒有成功的記錄或歷史。我想說的是，除了我們感到興奮的合作夥伴關係之外，今年下半年的營銷費用也會更高，因為我們取消了其中的一些費用。因此，我認為這都被納入了指導以及我們看到的第二季度相對於第二季度上半年的趨勢線。

So that's all within the numbers with the obvious caveat that there's still a lot going on. There's still a lot of variability in a number of markets with respect to -- due to COVID. So we are forecasting and monitoring as best we can.

所以這一切都在數字之內，但顯然還有很多事情要做。由於 COVID，許多市場仍然存在很大差異。因此，我們正在盡我們所能進行預測和監控。

All right. Next question is from Mark Mahaney, also somewhat guidance related. What are those can you provide on the two-sided marketplace and your view on when these initiatives will become financially material to the company?

好的。下一個問題來自 Mark Mahaney，也與指導有關。您可以在雙邊市場上提供什麼，以及您對這些舉措何時對公司具有財務重要性的看法？

Yes. So I think I said earlier, we are starting to see a benefit of the two-sided marketplace. It did have a positive impact on gross margin in the quarter. To Daniel's point, we're going to continue to launch out tools and services and products that help creators and artists and labels enable -- in order for them to sort of maximize their careers and their monetization. And so we feel good about it. I think a couple -- a while ago, we gave some numbers on Marketplace and where it's going. I would say we've sort of met or exceeded all of the expectations we had in terms of the Marketplace impact on gross margins.

是的。所以我想我之前說過，我們開始看到雙邊市場的好處。它確實對本季度的毛利率產生了積極影響。就丹尼爾的觀點而言，我們將繼續推出工具、服務和產品，幫助創作者、藝術家和唱片公司實現——以使他們的職業生涯和貨幣化最大化。所以我們對此感覺很好。我想一對——不久前，我們在 Marketplace 上給出了一些數字以及它的發展方向。我會說我們已經達到或超過了我們在市場對毛利率的影響方面的所有預期。

Great. Next question is from Jessica Reif Ehrlich. Is the advertising strength you're seeing right now solely from the U.S.? In addition to a healthy ad market, how is Spotify Audience Network contribute to the growth? And should we anticipate faster growth as you roll out to additional geographies?

偉大的。下一個問題來自 Jessica Reif Ehrlich。您現在看到的廣告實力是否僅來自美國？除了健康的廣告市場，Spotify Audience Network 如何為增長做出貢獻？當您向更多地區推廣時，我們是否應該期待更快的增長？

So the U.S. is our largest market when it comes to advertising. That's probably not surprising, and it did outperform. But all of our markets actually outperformed. So we had great growth in markets outside the U.S. And so as the U.S. goes, the advertising market for us will go because it is the largest part, but every segment we had, every geography outperformed their expectations, which is great. Spotify earnings definitely helped to contribute to growth. I think as I mentioned a little earlier, sell-through rates were better than expected. CPMs are a little higher than expected as well. So we're seeing the benefit of what we created in bringing the Megaphone inventory into the Spotify family, which has been great.

因此，就廣告而言，美國是我們最大的市場。這可能並不奇怪，而且它確實表現出色。但我們所有的市場實際上都表現出色。因此，我們在美國以外的市場取得了巨大的增長。隨著美國的發展，我們的廣告市場也會消失，因為它是最大的部分，但我們擁有的每個細分市場，每個地區都超出了他們的預期，這很棒。 Spotify 的收益無疑有助於促進增長。我認為正如我之前提到的，銷售率好於預期。 CPM 也略高於預期。因此，我們看到了將 Megaphone 庫存帶入 Spotify 系列所創造的好處，這非常棒。

And geographies, more geographies will help. As I said, the U.S. is still predominant in terms of advertising in Europe is a pretty big second and everything else is pretty small after that. So I would say for the near term, it's really a U.S.-Europe story. Over time, more of those geographies will contribute.

還有地域，更多的地域會有所幫助。正如我所說，美國在歐洲的廣告方面仍然佔據主導地位，其次是相當大的第二，其他一切都非常小。所以我想說，就近期而言，這確實是一個美國與歐洲的故事。隨著時間的推移，更多的這些地區將做出貢獻。

Maybe just as an addition here, we've talked a little bit about this before, but I'll say it again. We're mostly supply constrained and not demand constrained, meaning it's really more about us opening up more inventory than there being a lack of interest from advertisers in advertising with us. So the really big effort for us at the moment is just how do we unlock even more supply for all the demand that we have.

也許只是作為補充，我們之前已經談過一點，但我會再說一遍。我們主要是供應受限而不是需求受限，這意味著我們更多的是打開更多的庫存，而不是廣告商對我們的廣告缺乏興趣。因此，目前我們真正需要付出的巨大努力就是如何為我們所有的需求釋放更多的供應。

All right. We've got time for 1 or 2 more questions. The next one is going to come from Doug Anmuth regarding podcasting. O&E content is a small percentage of overall podcast on the platform, but it accounts for approximately 20% of total consumption. How do you think about the optimal mix of O&E content going forward?

好的。我們還有時間再回答 1 到 2 個問題。下一個將來自 Doug Anmuth 關於播客的內容。 O&E 內容只占平台整體播客的一小部分，但約佔總消費量的 20%。您如何看待未來 O&E 內容的最佳組合？

I don't think we have a particular number that we're striving towards. What we can see is that the O&E part of this tends to drive a bigger bump in engagement and in particular, translates into more new users. So whenever we've done an exclusive, we've tended to be able to convert more of the existing Spotify audience to also start listening to podcast on Spotify. And likewise, we've been able to get more people from outside of Spotify to try Spotify for the first time. So it's definitely been positive.

我不認為我們有一個我們正在努力實現的特定數字。我們可以看到，其中的 O&E 部分往往會推動更大的參與度，尤其是轉化為更多新用戶。因此，每當我們進行獨家播放時，我們往往能夠將更多現有的 Spotify 觀眾轉化為也開始在 Spotify 上收聽播客。同樣，我們已經能夠讓更多來自 Spotify 以外的人首次嘗試使用 Spotify。所以這絕對是積極的。

But as the mix goes, we're primarily focused on making Spotify the audio platform on the Internet. And we think that is the most important thing, and that's opening up more content. And as I mentioned, going from 8 million creators to 50 million creators is the primary focus. But obviously, the O&E part is a very helpful addition and it's helpful not just with our ability to get more people to listen to podcast, but also is a very attractive proposition for advertisers, as I think was evident in the quarter.

但隨著組合的發展，我們主要專注於讓 Spotify 成為互聯網上的音頻平台。我們認為這是最重要的事情，那就是開放更多的內容。正如我提到的，從 800 萬創作者到 5000 萬創作者是主要關注點。但顯然，O&E 部分是一個非常有用的補充，它不僅有助於我們讓更多人收聽播客，而且對廣告商來說也是一個非常有吸引力的提議，我認為這在本季度很明顯。

All right. Thanks for the question, Doug. And actually, we are out of time for Q&A, so I'll turn it back over to Daniel for closing remarks.

好的。謝謝你的問題，道格。事實上，我們沒有時間進行問答，所以我會把它轉回給 Daniel 作結束語。

All right. Well, thank you so much for listening to this Q&A portion. And of course, MAU growth slowed during the significant COVID-related pull-forward we saw in 2020 and the impact of the uneven recovery in the first half of 2021. But we do anticipate a strong second half and our trend lines are looking very healthy. And of course, in the short term, some COVID uncertainty lingers and in the long term, the shift from linear to on-demand audio will only continue to accelerate and has more than 1 billion user opportunities left, I think it really reinforces our position as the audio browser of the world. And no one else is as laser-focused as we are in audio. It's all we've done for over 15 years, and that dedication is an advantage we leverage every day for creators, for fans and brand partners.

好的。好吧，非常感謝您收聽這個問答部分。當然，在 2020 年我們看到與 COVID 相關的顯著拉動以及 2021 年上半年復蘇不平衡的影響期間，MAU 增長放緩。但我們確實預計下半年會強勁，我們的趨勢線看起來非常健康.當然，在短期內，一些 COVID 不確定性仍然存在，從長期來看，從線性音頻到點播音頻的轉變只會繼續加速，並且還有超過 10 億的用戶機會，我認為這確實鞏固了我們的地位作為世界的音頻瀏覽器。沒有人像我們一樣專注於音頻領域。這是我們 15 年來所做的一切，這種奉獻精神是我們每天為創作者、粉絲和品牌合作夥伴所利用的優勢。

We're pushing ourselves to deliver at an unprecedented pace, and we're building out the infrastructure to go even further faster. And long term, I believe these product innovations will bolster MAU and subscriber growth, helping to track more and more users around the world and connecting them to creators they already love as well as the ones they are waiting to discover.

我們正在推動自己以前所未有的速度交付，我們正在建設基礎設施以更快地走得更遠。從長遠來看，我相信這些產品創新將促進 MAU 和訂閱者的增長，幫助追踪全球越來越多的用戶，並將他們與他們已經喜愛的創作者以及等待發現的創作者聯繫起來。

I'll be talking more about the quarter on our podcast, Spotify: For the Record, which will go live on our platform tomorrow. Thanks again, everyone, for joining us.

我將在我們的播客 Spotify：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直播。再次感謝大家加入我們。

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

好的。今天的電話會議到此結束。電話重播將在我們的網站和 Spotify Earnings Call Replays 下的 Spotify 應用程序中提供。謝謝大家的加入。