Spotify executives just revealed why you couldn’t stop talking about Wrapped: ‘We turned up the dial’

SPOT +2.34%

Shares in Spotify Technology S.A. (NYSE: SPOT), the world’s largest music streamer, are surging this morning.

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As of this writing, the Swedish company’s stock price is up 18%, to above $489 per share, after the company reported blowout fourth-quarter fiscal 2025 earnings. Here’s what you need to know.

Spotify’s Q4 2025 surpasses expectations

On Tuesday, Spotify reported its Q4 2025 earnings, which outpaced investor expectations. Here are the music streamer’s most salient metrics for the quarter, which ended on December 31.

• Monthly active users (MAUs): 751 million (up 11% year over year)

• Premium subscribers: 290 million (up 10% year over year)

• Total revenue: €4.531 billion, or about $5.392 billion (up 10% year over year on a constant currency basis)

• Diluted earnings per share (EPS): €4.43, or about $5.27

What’s significant about these numbers is that they not only beat most analyst expectations, but Spotify’s own expectations as well. As CNBC notes, London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) analysts expected Spotify to report an EPS of €2.74, or about $3.26. The company easily beat that by €1.69 per share, or about $2.01.

Spotify was expected to report €4.52 billion in revenue; the company beat that slightly with €4.531 billion in revenue.

Analysts also expected Spotify to report around 745 million MAUs; the company beat that by 6 million users.

Spotify itself originally forecast 745 million MAUs for the quarter and 289 million premium subscribers; the company also beat both of these metrics.

Spotify Wrapped contributed to rise in premium subscribers

Premium subscribers are among Spotify’s most valuable, because of the recurring monthly revenue they generate and their loyalty to the brand.

And this time, the premium subscriber growth for Q4, which rose 10% year over year, can be partly attributed to the company’s wildly popular year-end Wrapped roundup.

Speaking on the company’s financial call after Spotify’s results were announced, co-CEO Alex Norström revealed that the company’s most recent Wrapped, which went live in December 2025, was also the most successful, calling Wrapped 2025 “record-breaking.”

“While we saw impressive engagement back in 2024, we also got feedback on the user experience. So this year, we turned up the dial, and the response was redeeming,” Norström said, according to a PitchBook transcript of the call. “At the end of the campaign, more than 300 million users engaged, which was up 20%, and we saw more than 630 million shares across social media, which is up 42%.”

He added that “day one of Wrapped marked the highest single day of premium subscriber intake in Spotify history.”

Given Wrapped’s 2025 success, it’s a safe bet the company will double down on it when the next iteration launches this December.

The SPOT stock surge isn’t enough to erase its recent decline

Despite Spotify’s stock price surging in early morning trading today, the impressive gains aren’t enough to get SPOT out of the broader slump it’s been in lately.

SPOT stock currently sits at around $489 a share after gaining 18% this morning. However, even with today’s gains, SPOT shares are still down more than 17% year to date. Spotify’s stock price fell dramatically in early February amid a broader tech sell-off.

Over the past year, SPOT shares also remain in the red, down nearly 25%. At around $489 per share, SPOT shares are currently well below their peak of $785 in June of last year.

Looking forward, Spotify says it expects to add another 8 million monthly active users during its current Q1 2026. Likewise, it expects to add another 3 million premium subscribers during the same period. The company expects total revenue for the quarter to be €4.5 billion, or about $5.3 billion.

This post originally appeared at fastcompany.comSubscribe to get the Fast Company newsletter: http://fastcompany.com/newsletters