The Effect of Spotify’s Podcast-Related Initiatives on Its Value

Since Spotify began allowing users to upload podcasts on its platform on October 5th, 2018, the streaming and media services provider has funneled over $1b dollars into podcast initiatives including acquiring podcast companies and content creators. While there is research that analyzes one specific podcast press release’s effect on Spotify’s stock price, there hasn’t been any research released that compiles all of the press releases regarding podcast acquisitions since Spotify’s IPO in 2018. I fill the void in this area of research and use event study methodology to estimate the impact of Spotify’s podcast- related initiatives on its value from its IPO on April 3rd, 2018 until December 31, 2020. The results show that all company acquisition announcements are associated with negative abnormal returns, and three of four have statistically insignificant effects. In contrast, the results show that all content creator acquisitions except for one are associated with positive abnormal returns, and three out of five have statistically significant effects. Lastly, my estimates indicate that Spotify’s podcast initiatives account for 20.23% of the increase in Spotify’s market capitalization during the time period studied