Spotify hits subscriber targets but revenues slow on EU data rules

LONDON (Reuters) - Music streaming leader Spotify on Thursday reported results mostly in line with forecasts, as the number of paid subscribers rose 10 percent over the last three months, but revenue growth was slowed by new European data privacy rules.

Monthly subscribers, which account for around 90 percent of revenue, rose to 83 million at the end of June, up from 75 million in the first three months of 2018. Analysts, on average, was looking for 82 million subs, a Thomson Reuters poll showed.

Second-quarter revenue rose 26 percent to 1.27 billion euros, roughly in line with market expectations. Fifteen analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had forecast, on average, 1.26 billion euros.

"We did see some GDPR disruption across our European markets during Q2 but seem to be largely past that now," the company said in a statement, referring to the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation that came into effect in May.

(Reporting by Eric Auchard in London; Editing by Adrian Croft)