The audio streaming giant, led by CEO Daniel Ek, posts its second-quarter results, which were hit by higher expenses and costs related to stock gains, pushing company shares lower in pre-market trading.

Spotify forecast quarterly profit below estimate on Tuesday, as higher taxes related to employee salaries outweigh music streaming demand, sending its high-flying shares down 11%.

Spotify in the second quarter easily topped Wall Street's expectations on one metric, by adding eight million paying customers -- pushing it to 276 million so-called premium customers overall -- but the music and podcast streaming company's stock price took a big hit in pre-market trading on Tuesday morning after it failed to meet other analyst projections for both sales and earnings.