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Spotify Continues to Grow Faster Than Apple Music Thanks to Free Tier
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What makes you think they stopped reporting sales?
They've never really reported on this stuff accurately or regularly, which makes sense as the only people who care are analysts looking for weak points. They do announce milestones -- 25M paid, 100M free, 50M paid, 150M free, etc -- as they happen.
Since they announced 50M paid subscribers in March of this year, all a lack of reporting means is that they haven't hit 75M paid users in the past 3 months. Which I wouldn't expect them to.
Exactly. Spotify benefited from the launch of Apple Music because more people were exposed to music streaming services, and when they saw that Spotify had a free tier they jumped on it. The only tier that is going to keep Spotify around in the long term is the paid subscribers.
Interesting. In terms of usability I'm sure Spotify is excellent, but when it comes to design aesthetics, I personally think it's hideous.
Well, revenue did increase by 50% from 2015 to 2016, but losses more than doubled in the same period.
In 2016 they had €2.9b of revenue and lost €539m.
https://www.ft.com/content/75e68140-51d4-11e7-bfb8-997009366969?mhq5j=e1
I don't think the free tier model is sustainable.
Daniel
In 2016 they had €2.9b of revenue and lost €539m.
https://www.ft.com/content/75e68140-51d4-11e7-bfb8-997009366969?mhq5j=e1
I don't think the free tier model is sustainable.
Daniel
I've never had Apple Music. Spotify is just too good.
Also I don't believe Apple is entitled to dominate every market it enters... I hate monopolies.
I thought Apple would not tolerate apps in direct competition with its own products, or at least I thought that was in the fine print for the AppStore? So, why won't Apple just remove Spotify from the AppStore and disable the app on the devices of those who have already downloaded it?
For myself I resolved whatever seemed to be my own issues with Apple Music --as far as my primary laptop usages goes -- by having separate iTunes libraries. But I admit to having launched my experimentation with Apple music on a spare computer with a dummy itunes library to start with, "owning" only a couple of ripped CDs and just one each of albums purchased from iTunes as AAC and as DRM-protected files.
Spotify I do use now and then on my laptop via browser, but tend to revert to Apple Music just out of familiarity with iTunes' manner of presenting my options. As I do keep that separate library for Apple music acquisitions, it's long since become habit for me to open iTunes with the option key held down and then just select which library I'm looking to launch with.
I have a lot of purchased music from CDs ripped to iTunes libraries, and still don't use any mobile devices with Apple music. The little experiments I did do with AM on a mobile, I ran on an iPod touch around the same time I was playing around on that spare laptop with some "guinea pig" libraries. I kept inadvertently wiping out stuff on the iPod touch. I blamed myselt, and then my test setup, and finally got around to reading the web's experience with it and said ok, maybe later for this... LOL it was early days then with Apple Music and likely whatever happened there has been remedied, plus the UI in general for the iOS version of the music app seems to have improved over time.
But, my mobiles now still only know anything about music from what I let them see and scarf up off my regular iTunes libraries. I do use and really like Apple music a lot using it from a laptop. It has let me acquire so much a better sense of assorted classical works and operas that of course I could not just go out and buy all of for the sake of selecting one I might end up preferring. And it lets me keep up with contemporary music including new releases from some favored older bands as well. I suppose that Spotify does that well also, and for me Apple Music is particularly a matter of preference via habitual use of iTunes.
This thread revives my interest in fishing up that iPod touch and giving mobile use of AM another go, I have to say. I wouldn't reboot that project on my iPhone, that's for sure. Maybe Later, when I know what I'm doing with Apple music on the current iOS music app. Perhaps I should be giving Spotify another shot at my mobile usage as well...
Yeah ... it really is irritating. Sometimes a rap song will start playing on a classical music station. I just ... I don't understand ... lol.
They'll fold any year now ... or so we've been told for about a decade.
Spotify is in growth mode. Music streaming is a numbers game, scale is everything. They have no trouble raising VC funding, so they must be doing something right. Remember that it took Amazon 20 years to make a profit.
Yeah, it's looking more and more like a duopoly now. A little surprising that Google and Amazon hasn't gotten more traction considering there's little differentiation amongst the services.
I guess they don't care as much since their primary focus is getting user data.
I'm not sure what you're intending to include with the "etc.", but Spotify does work with Amazon Echo. You'll need Premium to use it natively from the Echo itself. But, of course, even with the free tier you can do the same thing that would (I assume) also let it work with HomePod: stream over Bluetooth. (EDIT: OK, some HomePod only supports AirPlay 2. Hopefully that will support iOS or macOS streaming to HomePod, but if not--or if you're on Windows--maybe third parties will be able to reverse-engineer it and make something like AirFoil again.)
Personally, I've never used Apple Music because Spotify does almost everything I want and has a fairly good collection of music and works across all my devices. The Music app on iOS certainly doesn't make Apple Music seem inviting to me, and the free tier from Spotify certainly doesn't hurt, either (I do often pay but can go months without if I don't want things like offline mode).
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That's because artists are not really giving their content for free, even on the free tier service from Spotify and YouTube. Such companies still have to pay royalties to be able to play music for artists, legally. They turn a profit by placing ads throughout the stream. Musicians get paid, content providers make money, and you don't have to shell out any cash in order to enjoy whatever you are listening/watching, but you do have to put up with those ads. When you download your music through torrents, no one gets paid..... and they don't like that.
Edit: spelling