Shazam has published its financial results for 2015, and they reveal that its turnover fell slightly, from £36m in 2014 to £35.2m in 2015.
Meanwhile, Shazam’s net losses increased from £14.8m in 2014 to £16.5m in 2015, as it invested in new features and continued to navigate its transition from music-downloads referrals to advertising as its main income stream.
“Advertising sales turnover continues to be the primary commercial focus for Shazam which experienced strong year over year growth,” claimed the company’s directors in their financial report. We can only imagine that the other revenues dropped markedly, given the overall slight decline.
Still, Shazam is in no danger of going out of business for now: it ended 2015 with £27.6m of cash at bank and in hand, up from £11.1m at the end of 2014.
The financials do not reveal how Shazam’s business has developed in 2016, but last month executive chairman Andrew Fisher told Music Ally that the company had moved into profit.
“We’re still investing, in fact slightly higher than last year. But the important thing for us is we’ve been able to drive for profitability. We have been profitable for the last few months, as a business,” he said then.
“We are very happy to invest in the opportunities, and happy to be lossmaking as a business, but it is appropriate in the current economic climate, and with Brexit, that we’re profitable and have significant cash on the balance sheet. Shazam is a profitable entity and it can be sustained in its growth.”
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