Pivotal Research analyst Jeffrey Wlodarczak lowered his price target for Spotify Technology to $140 from $150 while keeping a Hold rating on the shares. The stock closed Wednesday down 5% to $147.00. Spotify yesterday reported a mixed Q4 with better monthly active users and worse financials, Wlodarczak tells investors in a research note. The Q4 monthly active user beat was driven by a "massive" increase in marketing and temporary churn benefits from moving to a three free month family plan promotion, says the analyst. His longer term concern, besides valuation, are the four music labels that control 90%-plus of Spotify's music "constantly extracting their pound of flesh from SPOT's results."

Wells Fargo raised the firm's price target on Spotify to $400 from $310 and keeps an Overweight rating on the shares. A year ago, Spotify's long-term profitability was in question, the firm notes. Now, it's a question of "how good?" margins can get. Wells believes strong profit growth supports its 41-times EV/EBITDA multiple.

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Evercore ISI raised the firm's price target on Spotify to $340 from $285 and keeps an Outperform rating on the shares following what the firm describes as "Beat & Raise Q1 EPS results." The "Big Story" this quarter was profitability, with gross margin and operating income both at record highs, says the analyst, who is removing the stock from the firm's "Tactical Underperform" list. The list inclusion was based on risks to Q1 operating income and to the Q2 MAU outlook and while "both of these risks materialized," they were "utterly swamped by the major Gross Margin inflection point," the analyst tells investors.

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Reports Q1 ad supported MAUs 388M vs. 317M last year.

Reports Q1 MAUs 615M vs. 515M last year. "Overall, we are encouraged by the strong start to the year and view the business as well positioned to deliver on the goals outlined at our 2022 Investor Day."