Netflix (NFLX) has been my best investment ever; I’m sitting on 3,479% gains. Now, I am buying a new company that’s strikingly similar. It’s a company that I call “the Netflix of music.” Spotify Technology S.A. (SPOT) is the world’s biggest music streaming service. That means the company lets users listen to music “on demand” using a mobile or desktop app. In fact, I’m listening to the Rolling Stones on Spotify while writing this report.
Spotify lets millions of users listen to music for free. This is the company’s advertising supported business. But the heart of the business is the music subscription.
Spotify has 180 million monthly active users. This includes 83 million paying subscribers. The company attracts new users with a free music app. That app includes occasional advertisements. The goal is to convert these free users into paying subscribers.
Right now, 46% of the company’s users are paying for a subscription. And that’s a very high conversion rate from free to paid subscriptions. For a monthly fee of $9.99, users can listen to unlimited music — without advertising.
Spotify offers millions of albums, giving members access to almost everything. The subscription free is similar to Netflix, which until recently charged $10 per month for video streaming.
Spotify went public in April. The company did a “direct stock offering”, bypassing Wall Street’s conventional initial public offering or IPO. The stock opened for trading at nearly $166. The stock reached a high of $199 over the summer, before retreating. My target price is $220.
The recent stock market pullback has presented an attractive buying opportunity for Spotify. The company is a high-growth, disruptive technology firm whose shares have experienced a greater selloff than the broader market.
