Hearty boos for Spotify performance

Wall Street isn’t dancing to this tune. Spotify’s first earnings report since going public was a dud, and investors didn’t hold back in showing their disappointment, sending the Swedish music-streaming giant’s shares down 8.8 percent, to $155, in after-hours trading.

Spotify posted a first-quarter operating loss of $202 million, or $1.21 a share, on revenue of $1.37 billion, which was in line with analysts’ ex- pectations. It posted a loss of 34 cents a share on revenue of $1.09 billion during the year-earlier period.

Investors keyed on a disappointing outlook for revenue growth. Revenue is expected to range $1.32 billion to $1.56 billion next quarter, while Wall Street was looking for $1.55 billion.

The popular music streamer continued to focus on building up its base of subscribers over its bottom line, with the addition of 170 million monthly active users as well as 75 million paid subscribers. Ad-supported active monthly users totaled 99 million.

“We believe we are only in the second inning of the Spotify journey,” cofounder and Chief Executive Daniel Ek said to reassure analysts and investors on a conference call.

Spotify said it expects monthly active users to climb to between 175 million and 180 million and to garner 79 million to 83 million paid subscribers.

Spotify became a public last month via a much-ballyhooed direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange.