3 charts for you today:
Spotify tried to make one thing very clear to its investors this week: that it's still in its "growth" phase.
On Monday Spotify announced plans to move into 85 new markets, mostly in Asia, Africa, the Pacific and the Caribbean, as well as announcing a new premium subscription with "higher quality" audio. According to the Swedish streaming giant, those new markets should open the company up to more than 1 billion new potential customers.
Growth, growth, growth
If you read last week's newsletter you'll have noticed that at a quick glance this chart looks a lot like the Shopify one from Friday. But, despite similar sounding names, SHOP and SPOT are in very different places. For Spotify its growth has slowed down to a healthy, but not outrageous, 16%. That's why the announcements on Monday feel so important for the company.
Reiterating the message, that Spotify is still very much a growth company, is clearly the top priority for Spotify management. If investors begin to see Spotify as a lower growth business, they'll need to see profits to justify owning the shares — which isn't something Spotify has been good at producing in the last decade, reporting a net loss in every single year since 2011.
The big podcasts bet
Last year 55% of Americans reported that they have listened to a podcast, up from 51% the year before. It's no surprise then that Spotify has also doubled down on its big podcasts bet, unveiling a raft of new exclusive podcasts featuring big names such as Barack & Michelle Obama, Bruce Springsteen and Ava DuVernay.
There's nothing worse than a broken heart. Except maybe a broken heart and an empty bank account. So pour one out for the 32,792 people that reported they were a victim of a "romantic scam" last year in the US. As online dating has gone mainstream (we've written about that here), so have the scammers, armed with a limitless supply of attractive photos from the internet.
Lucrative lies
Total losses to romance scams topped more than $304 million last year and the FTC report on the subject reveals that "the median amount people sent romance scammers in 2020 using any method of payment was $2,500". That's more than ten times the median loss across all other fraud types, making romantic scams extraordinarily lucrative for scam artists, presumably because it's so much easier to manipulate a human being when romantic feelings and emotions are involved.
The pandemic itself has added an extra dynamic for the scammers to use. COVID is a convenient excuse for why your love interest can't travel to see you or why they may need monetary help.
Interestingly, although older people were more likely to get scammed for more money (median loss of almost $10k for those aged 70+), the number of scams reported by people aged 20-29 more than doubled last year. Swipe safely folks.
The chess boom is showing no signs of slowing down. The latest data for streaming platform Twitch reveals that last month more than 18 million hours of chess were watched. Last February it was closer to 1 million hours viewed. For some context, global gaming sensation Among Us has been watched for 16.6 million hours so far in February — meaning more people are tuning in to watch Chess on Twitch than Among Us.
The January numbers were certainly boosted by the fact that the last 2 weeks had one of the most prestigious tournaments held — the Tata Steel Chess Championships — but the numbers for February so far are equally high, and there are still 4 days left to run in the month.
Why is chess booming?
Top chess players are realising that chess enthusiasts want to see them play, and hear their thoughts as they crush their opponents. Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura is a perfect example. Currently ranked 19th in the world, he now routinely gets 20,000+ people watching his chess streams at any one time. Fun games against popular internet personalities such as MrBeast (with more than a few pieces missing) have helped widen his reach.
As we pointed out last year, chess got a bump in interest from the Netflix series The Queen's Gambit, but it's really been the efforts of Chess.com, the largest platform to play chess online, that has propelled the game into the streaming age. Collaborations with top players and sponsored live-streaming of top tournaments have been available just as people looked for new hobbies to take-up during the pandemic.
Chess, the oldest game on Earth, is now one of the most modern in how it reaches its players.
1) Oatly, the vegan-friendly milk producer backed by Oprah Winfrey and others, is reportedly eyeing an IPO and looking for a valuation of up to $10bn from investors.
2) An old but really interesting article from Wait But Why on how little you actually know about your ancestors and why you have more great-great grandparents than you might have actually realised (16).
3) Square, the payments company run by Jack Dorsey, has bought $170m worth of Bitcoin, taking Bitcoin to around 5% of the company's assets.
4) Quickbase apps have been delivered 3-4x quicker than with traditional development. Schedule a free demo with Quickbase and try No-Code building today.**
5) The US has passed the sad milestone of 500,000 deaths from COVID-19. Get the latest data for the US and globally.
6) Millions of people in China are embracing tiny electric vehicles that look more like golf carts than cars, but cost just less than $2,500.
**This is a sponsored snack.
