Good morning and welcome to Spotify's Leadership Update Call. All participants are in a listen-only mode. If you require operator assistance at any time, please press star zero. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Bryan Goldberg, Head of Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead.
Thanks, operator, and thanks everyone for joining us to discuss this morning's news. On the call today is Daniel Ek, Spotify's founder, CEO, and chairman, Alex Norström, Co-President and Chief Business Officer, Gustav Söderström, Co-President and Chief Product and Technology Officer, and Christian Luiga, our Chief Financial Officer. Questions can be submitted by going to slido.com and using the code #SpotifyUpdate. Due to time constraints, we ask that you please only ask one question limited to today's news announcement. As a reminder, the following discussion might include forward-looking statements or other information that could be considered forward-looking. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results could differ based on factors outlined in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. With that, I'll turn it over to Daniel.
All right. Hey, everyone. By now, you've seen our news. At the beginning of 2026, I will transition to the role of Executive Chairman, and our two Co-Presidents, Alex Norström and Gustav Söderström, will step into the roles of Co-CEOs, reporting to me. They have also been nominated to join our board pending shareholder approvals. Before we dive into the Q&A, I just wanted to take a moment to congratulate Alex and Gustav. Since stepping into their roles as Co-Presidents, they've done an amazing job, leading with vision, executing brilliantly, and driving real growth for all of our stakeholders. I am incredibly proud of them, and having them step up to become CEOs feels like the natural evolution. Why now? After more than 15 years of working together, Spotify is in its strongest position yet. The business is solid.
The model we've refined over many years is delivering, and thanks in large part to Alex and Gustav's leadership, we're better positioned than ever for what's next. We've proven not only that Spotify is a great product, but also that it's a great business. What changes for me is my focus. As Executive Chairman, I'll spend more time on the long-term strategic decisions that will define Spotify's next decade. As you consider this model, I will be more involved than a typical U.S. chairman. Think of it a little bit like moving from a player to a coach. I make this transition with tremendous confidence in what's ahead for us. If you want to hear me talk more about my thoughts on leadership and my journey, I went pretty deep on it with David Sendra on his new podcast that you can find on Spotify.
With that, let's open it up to Q&A.
All right. Thanks, Daniel. If you've got any questions, please go to slido.com, #SpotifyUpdate. We're going to be addressing the questions in the order in which they appear in the queue. Our first question today is going to come from Mike Morris. OK, Daniel, why is now the right time for you and Spotify to see this leadership change?
I think, Michael, it's kind of like I said in my opening remarks here. It's less a function of really anything except the fact that Alex Norström and Gustav Söderström are truly delivering exceptionally well already. I feel like this is a natural evolution on what we already do as a leadership team. Gustav and Alex, since taking over as co-presidents in 2023, have really stepped up in a material way, taking much of the day-to-day responsibilities. As they've been growing, I've been handing them more and more of the tasks. I feel like this is actually more of a natural reflection of how the company actually works and operates already. To the second part of what the responsibilities will be, I'll hand it a little bit to Gustav and Alex as well.
From my side, I really do believe, as I said, I've evolved from being more of a player to more of a coach-type model. I will work with Gustav and Alex on the big strategic decisions that we face in the long arc of the company. Alex and Gustav, do you want to add something?
I can start. This is Gustav. Alex and I will have the same divisional responsibilities that we've had as co-presidents. My core responsibilities are Product and Technology, and Alex's core responsibilities are Business, Markets, and Content. As we've said before on earnings calls, the way Alex and I work is a little bit different. We work very closely together. Alex is deeply interested and knowledgeable about Product, and I'm very interested in Business. We run this as a single team, our joint teams together. In practice, not that much will change from how we run the company, but these are the core responsibilities that we have.
Great. I'll give you a little bit more sort of leading up to this decision. You know, the three of us have worked together for more than a decade and a half now. If there's one thing that both Gustav and I know about Daniel, it's that he's a learning machine. As such, he's not only learning a lot himself, he's also expecting us to learn a lot, too. This has been a gradual change where he's kind of progressively pushed more and more responsibility and accountability over to us. Like Gustav said, like three years ago, we started with this integrated team at the top. We took on more and more of strategy and operations. A fun fact is that we actually sit in the same room, the three of us. People are very surprised when they see that.
That just has meant so much in terms of momentum and impact for us as a business. For me and Gustav, this is not so much a change in direction. This is more doubling down on a setup that we think is working in, and it will increase pace even more.
All right. Our next question is going to come from Rich Greenfield. I believe this is directed to Daniel. Will you still be involved in earnings calls and analyst days?
The transition happens January 1, 2026. You should definitely expect me to be involved for both Q3 and Q4 earnings calls. Depending on what makes the most amount of sense and when Alex and Gustav want me there, of course, I'll be there.
All right. A question now from Justin Patterson, also for Daniel. You had mentioned spending more time coaching and thinking about long-term strategy on the David Sendra podcast this weekend. This announcement seems congruent with that. When you think about Spotify's long arc, what are some of the key initiatives to drive long-term growth?
As I reflect back on two decades of Spotify, there's a few phrasings that come to mind. One of them is that overnight success doesn't happen overnight. It is actually just a sort of waking up, going to work, work really hard, and making gradual improvements over 20 years. That is the result of the company that we're sitting here today with. I think Gustav and Alex know this incredibly well. What I think is very important is that I still believe, with every fiber of my being, that we're early on this journey. When you sort of look out and you sort of see what's still left on the table for Spotify, there's some amazing opportunities. One of them, of course, is there's the next generation of consumers that are now coming online in a very big way.
We have a huge part of the world that still isn't really accustomed to streaming as much as we take it for granted today, with everything from Asia to Africa, who are also incredibly populous regions and very young demographics, too. Of course, we have new technology advancements, new form factors, AI, all of these other things, too. I'm reminded of the Bill Gates quote, that people tend to overestimate the short term and underestimate the long term. That's certainly one of the things that Alex, Gustav, and I have talked a lot about. I'm going to keep pushing for us to look around the corner, stay focused on the long term, and keep showing up every day and make gradual improvements, because that's long term what leads to the best results. That, I know, is the product of what Spotify is today.
All right. Our next question is going to come from Ben Swinburne. Daniel, can you discuss more the role of a European Executive Chairman in the context of Spotify? Will you be spending more time on outside endeavors going forward? For Alex and Gustav, congratulations. How will you two be dividing up the responsibilities as Co-CEOs? Will there be any notable changes relative to today?
Yeah, I think it's probably important here. Everyone has probably different anticipations about what a chairman is. I think most investors may come at it from a U.S. perspective, where it's mostly a ceremonial role. In Europe, it isn't. In fact, a chairman is someone who's quite active in the business, sometimes even represents the business externally to different stakeholders, like, for instance, governments or key partners, et cetera. We wanted to make it clear that this role is more in line with a European one than an American one. The executive part is I am still retaining an office here with Gustav and Alex, sitting here, hopefully working on various types of problems with them. With all that said, I do want to make it clear this is really they're in charge. They're the ones making the decision.
I will be there as a friend, a coach, a cheerleader, whatever I'm needed to do for the day in making this happen. Gustav, Alex, do you want to add to it?
Yes, I already mentioned the divisional responsibilities, which is largely the way we've divided it today. We think it's working really well. As Alex said, we just want to double down and accelerate. We think the opportunity in terms of market size is huge. We think the opportunity in terms of product changes and coming form factors is massive. We also do need to level up. Just as Daniel has tried to build a really strong team, so have we. We feel very confident in the team that we have under us. Several of these people are going to take more responsibility to free up time for us to focus on these new responsibilities as well. We're going to remain detail-oriented and pushing for action, for sure.
Yeah, just want to underline that even more. You know, we're in 184 markets today. As such, we get to travel a lot and see the world and meet a lot of people. I can assure you that we have one of the best teams anywhere in the world.
All right. Our next question is going to come from Barton Crockett on the board. If Spotify's board remains at 11, it looks like the addition of Gustav and Alex will take insider to independent mix to 5 out of 11 versus the current 3 out of 11 now. How do you justify that as appropriate for Spotify?
First and foremost, I think the most important thing for Spotify is having a very competent board that understands the business of Spotify. I believe that, in general, having a long-tenured board, having a board that truly understands the business is a really important thing to enact both governance, but also in order to get the right strategic feedback for the management teams in driving the right decisions going forward. To your specific remark, I think technically the only insiders right now would then be myself, Gustav, and Alex, as I believe the ones you're referring to are Martin Lorentzon and Barry McCarthy. Martin Lorentzon has never had any operational role with the company. Obviously, he's a co-founder, but he's only been active as a board member. Barry McCarthy has, it was quite a few years ago since he was technically considered an insider.
I think we're actually 3 of 11 board members. The number one thing for me is that we have a capable, competent board that really understands the business. I'm very happy with the current board. We have a great set of board members and a great set of tenure that means that they've been through a lot of different iterations of the company.
All right. Our next question is going to come from Jessica Reeve-Ehrlich for Gustav and Alex. How much of your day-to-day jobs will change with today's announcement? Looking forward to the next chapter, what are each of you most excited about?
All right, I'll start. Alex here. I think we covered a bit on our day-to-day jobs. I'll talk a little bit about the excitement that we share. As a matter of fact, I think we can't, we've never been, we can't be more excited than we are right now. It's just we have so much momentum. Like we've been shipping at an increasingly higher pace. You saw us see the completion of renewals happen this year. We rolled out audiobooks to more markets. We just improved the free tier, which is going well. We shipped messaging. We shipped mixing tools, lossless, DJ, and that on it goes. We'll continue to ship even more things. The bigger picture for me is something that I've mentioned in a couple of earnings calls before, and Gustav has been saying it, too.
It's just we're lucky that we started with music because everyone on planet Earth has some relationship with music. Today at Spotify, we see 3% of the world's population paying us on a recurring basis for a product that they're loving. Like 90% of people say it's essential to their lives. If you ask me, you know, will we ever be at 90% or 95%? Maybe that's crazy. It's not unimaginable that we'll be at 10%, 15%, just because of the geographical opportunity that we see out there. With, like Daniel mentioned, the populous nations of India, lots of growth going on in there, Bangladesh, Pakistan, very populous regions. You have Africa as well coming online. You know, this is just reminiscent of what we saw in the beginning of LATAM, which was lots and lots of growth to look forward to, both on the MEU and subside. Yeah.
I would obviously echo that. I think the opportunity itself and just being in a business that touches everyone, I think it's larger than any other consumer business in terms of TAM. It's just exciting. Personally, if we go down to intrinsic motivation, I'm a product guy and a technologist. I'm intrinsically interested in consumer products and technology for the sake of technology. If you are that person, Alex is laughing here, but he knows it's true. If you are that person, you'd have to think hard before you find a better place to do that, where we have a consumer product that touches upwards of 700 million users every month. It's still only 3% of the world's population that subscribes. The opportunity is still huge. I've been here long enough that I went through the previous big macro change, which was the shift to mobile.
That was, it was certainly scary. All macro shifts are scary. As a product person and technologist, it was the most exciting time I've ever had until AI, because now everything is about to change again. Back in the shift to mobile, we managed to position the company to actually have that macro win as a tailwind instead of a headwind. This is what we want to do now as well. I think if you ask anyone in product, this is the most exciting time in probably 15- 20 years. You want to be at a company that has massive impact. That's why I'm excited.
All right. We have a related question from Bacha Levi. How do you see the growth drivers evolving for Spotify in the next decade versus the past 10 years? Do you envision music to still be the primary service on the platform?
Yeah, listen, today is about today. We will have lots of opportunity to talk more about the business of Spotify. Like I said, we've entered the markets of podcasts and video. We've gone into books. We've rolled out books and audiobooks into more and more markets. We've seen revenue growth of 17%- 18% in the past two years. CAGR, we've been compounding that, which is great. We're just in the beginning. We think there's much more to be had on podcasts and videos growing on Spotify. And books is just, we're seeing great growth in all three verticals.
I would add to that that I think we are going to focus on what is working today, because it's working really well. We have enormous amounts of potential left. We will also obviously keep raising the ambition, as we all have, and as Daniel's kind of coached us to do over the last 15- 20 years. You will see more of that as well. There are some obvious things that we are very excited about, already mentioned. AI, we think new form factors are coming. These form factors all seem to sit on your face and be in your ears all the time. That should be very good for Spotify, we think. We're obviously excited about TV, where we still think we have a lot of opportunity. We just started with video, etc. Nothing new to announce, but we are very excited.
We're going to keep working hard while also raising the ambition.
Yeah, that's right.
All right. We've got time for two more questions. The next one is going to come from Michael Morris. For Alex and Gustav, congratulations. Most companies have a single CEO. Why is the Co-CEO structure right for Spotify?
Yeah, this may sound a little cliché, but I do think that we both make each other much better. You have a one plus one equals not three, but five, I believe, situation going on right in here. With Daniel coaching us, which he's been doing for, again, like a decade and a half, this just goes into overdrive. All three of us really like this setup. It's changing. It's getting better every year, every month, as we all grow separately as well. Like Gustav said before, when it comes to the two of us, Gustav's domain is product and technology. Mine is business. At Spotify, business means everything from consumer products and revenue that comes from there, and obviously also content. As we straddle three content verticals, it also means marketing and markets. The fun thing is that we both know a little bit about each other's areas.
We're very complementary in that kind of setup.
I think Alex is three out of those five, and I'm two, maybe. No, seriously, I think it's pretty obvious. It is hard to work together. Many people can't do it. If you can do it, obviously, you get twice the brainpower. I really think it's that simple. We can work well together. We have for a long time.
All right. Our last question today is going to come from Stephen Kahal. First, for Alex Norström and Gustav Söderström, what are your top three priorities for Spotify in 2026? For Daniel , how do you think you'll be most beneficial to Spotify in your new bigger picture role?
I can start. I've already mentioned it a couple of times. We're in the middle of a macro win called AI. There are better recommendations, there's more personalization. We also think it's going to eventually end up in new form factors. My top priority, my one, two, and three, is to make sure that we capture this opportunity and make it a tailwind that actually accelerates us.
Yeah. On my first day of Spotify, I sat next to Daniel. Gustav was there, too. I asked Daniel, OK, I joined now. What's the prior list look like? He's like, it's very easy. There's only three things we need to think about. Number one is growth. Number two is growth. Guess what? Number three is growth as well. He said, you may begin, guys. We set off. No, all kidding aside, I'm not kidding. He actually said those things. To sort of add a little bit more color into that, you've heard Gustav and me say that we will relentlessly just put value into product and give that to subscribers and users. That is what we're about. We are going to continue to innovate, push boundaries, give more and more, provide more and more value for our customers. This is a consumer business, like Gustav mentioned earlier.
We are relentless about doing that. We'll continue to do that.
I guess the question on how I think I'll be the most beneficial. I think the first thing I will state is this is mostly an evolution today about how we're already working. I think we'll mostly keep working the way we have been working, which is sort of me trying to coach the guys to the extent that I can provide thoughts and advice. I think one of the sort of future-looking aspects is also the outside-in perspective. One of the great things that I feel now, having been involved with companies like NecoHealth, et cetera, is that you do get a different perspective about different operating environments, different cultures, and those things, too. Again, one of the amazing things we have here with Spotify is we have a team, an extremely tenured team.
A lot of folks have been here for 10, 15 years and really grown up with the company. I think that is, to 99%, a superpower that we have here as a company. Spotify would not have been what it is today if it weren't for all the Spotifyers past and present that helped build the company into what it is today. With all that said, one of the real things as well is it is important to be able to draw on inspiration from the outside.
One of my new superpowers is that I do get to sit on the inside on some of the other businesses as well that I'm helping build and seeing what it truly is like to start a new startup, for instance, in 2025, and what are some of the tools and decisions you can make, and how can that impact Spotify in a positive way. We have already seen some of those lessons and are applying them now at Spotify, too. That is one of the additional contributions that I hope to make. It is mostly a real evolution of how we are already working today. I know we are out of time, but I just wanted to say again what I said just recently, which is a huge thank you to all the Spotifyers past and present.
This has truly been an honor of a lifetime to lead this company. I am hugely excited for this next chapter. Gustav and Alex, congratulations. I am so amazingly proud of both of you. I cannot wait to work with you guys in making the next 20 years as successful as the past have been.
Great. Thank you very much for the questions. Operator, that concludes today's call.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for joining, and you may now disconnect.