eNews
Spotify Q4 strikes a chord with record-breaking 16 per cent revenue uptick
MUMBAI: Spotify has cranked up the volume on success, wrapping up 2024 with a Q4 that hit all the right notes. The music streaming powerhouse saw nearly every key metric outperform expectations, proving that when it comes to growth, Spotify is playing a chart-topping hit.
The platform’s monthly active users (MAUs) surged to 675 million, marking a 12 per cent year-on-year (YoY) increase, while premium subscribers climbed 11 per cent to 263 million. Clearly, more people than ever are hitting play on Spotify’s offerings, and the company isn’t skipping a beat.
Revenue swelled to €4.24 billion, reflecting a 16 per cent YoY increase, with both premium and ad-supported segments driving the momentum. The premium segment alone raked in €3.7 billion, up 17 per cent, fueled by strong subscriber growth and an uptick in average revenue per user (ARPU). Meanwhile, ad-supported revenue reached €537 million, a seven per cent annual rise, even as the global ad market faced turbulence.
Spotify’s advertising business continued its ascent, with both music and podcast ad revenue showing solid gains. However, pricing softness in some regions tempered overall ad growth. Automated sales channels played a pivotal role in pushing ad revenue higher, especially in fast-growing markets. The ad-supported gross margin rose to 15.1 per cent, an increase of 351 basis points (bps) YoY, reflecting smarter monetisation strategies and enhanced content efficiencies.
Not to be outdone, Spotify’s gross margin soared to 32.2 per cent, a resounding 555 bps increase YoY. And for the real showstopper: the company recorded an operating income of €477 million—its highest ever—securing its first full year of operating profitability.
In the realm of free cash flow (FCF), Spotify turned the dial all the way up. The company generated €877 million in Q4, pushing its total FCF for 2024 to a record-breaking €2.3 billion. That’s a lot of cash dancing to the beat of Spotify’s success.
With the company in full growth mode and its financials singing a happy tune, 2025 looks like another year where Spotify will keep the hits—and the numbers—rolling.
eNews
PNB partners Kiwi to launch credit-enabled UPI for users
Targets 180 million customers; RuPay card offers 0.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent cashback
MUMBAI: Swipe, tap, or scan credit is quietly slipping into the rhythm of everyday payments, and Punjab National Bank wants in on the action. The state-run lender has partnered with Kiwi to roll out credit-enabled UPI payments for its 180 million customers, marking a significant push to blend traditional banking with India’s fast-evolving digital payments ecosystem.
At the centre of the collaboration is the launch of the PNB Kiwi Credit Card on the RuPay network. The card is designed with a digital-first approach, offering fully online onboarding and seamless integration with UPI, allowing users to transact via scan-and-pay while accessing credit.
The offering also brings in a rewards layer, with cashback ranging from 0.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent on online transactions, positioning the product as both a convenience play and a spending incentive.
The move comes as UPI continues to dominate India’s digital payments landscape, increasingly blurring the lines between debit-led transactions and credit access. For PNB, which operates over 10,000 branches around 60 per cent in semi-urban and rural areas, the partnership signals a targeted effort to extend formal credit to segments that have traditionally remained underserved.
The collaboration also reflects a broader industry shift, where banks and fintech platforms are converging to embed credit directly into payment flows, reducing friction while expanding access.
With RuPay credit cards gaining traction and UPI evolving beyond peer-to-peer transfers, the PNB–Kiwi tie-up positions both players at the intersection of scale, accessibility, and the next phase of digital finance in India.
