Spotify Stock Misses a Beat. Blame This Cost for a Surprise Loss.

Spotify has a total of 276 million premium subscribers. (Gabby Jones/Bloomberg)

Spotify Technology stock was falling on Tuesday after the streaming platform posed a surprise quarterly loss.

Spotify posted a net loss of 86 million euros ($100 million), or 42 euro cents a share, for the second quarter, swinging from a profit of €1.33 a share during the same period a year earlier. Analysts were expecting a profit of roughly €1.98 a share, according to a FactSet survey.

The company was hit by €116 million in social charges, which refers to payroll taxes tied to share-based compensation.

The Swedish company’s American depositary receipts were down 1o% in early trading. Through Monday’s close, the stock was up 57% this year.

However, consumers still look to be willing to pay up for subscriptions, as Spotify remains the dominant music streaming platform over rival services from Amazon.com , Apple , and France’s Deezer .

Spotify added eight million premium subscribers in the June quarter, ahead of expectations for five million, driving a 10% rise in revenue to €4.19 billion. It ended the period with 276 million premium subscribers worldwide. Monthly active users grew 11% to 696 million.

It expects premium subscribers to rise to 281 million and monthly active users to increase to 710 million by the end of the current quarter, as it forecast revenue of €4.2 billion.

Write to Adam Clark at adam.clark@barrons.com