Spotify Growing at Faster Pace Since Apple Music Launched Last Year

[jayducharme]

Spotify continues to operate at a loss due to expensive royalties and revenue sharing with music label partners, but the Swedish company expects to eventually become profitable through continued subscriber growth.

Sheesh! How the heck many subscribers do they need before they turn a profit? Thirty million isn't enough? That sounds to me like there's something wrong with their business model.

As for Apple Music, I just can't bring myself to pay $10 a month for millions of songs I probably won't listen to. I love iTunes Match, though; it's gotten me to listen to (and download) music again. And I like the Genius feature; it seems to create uncanny mixes -- and given my eclectic tastes in music, that's saying something. Wasn't the whole idea of the iPod that I could listen to MY music MY way? Apple Music seems to be moving in a different direction.

 

[oneMadRssn]

It's sad. Apple always used to be "late to the party" but whatever they created would be better than what was out there (ex. Copy/Paste, Multitasking in iOS, etc..). Now, they have a habit of being late & their products being inferior.

I find it odd you chose those are the two primary examples. I think the way Apple does Copy/Paste in iOS to be pretty bad and the fact you can never be sure which text is selectable is pretty annoying. Also, side-by-side multitasking in iOS is awful, and one of the main reasons I sold my iPad. As for just switching apps, I think Palm had it best with WebOS, and Apple kind of copied this idea, but I don't think they did it in any way that is better.

If you want examples of where apple was late to the party but created something better, I think you have to go as far back as the iphone, ipad, imac, macbook air, etc. Basically, the hardware of the second Jobs era.

 

[mcjack]

Spotify was great for me until the following notification popped up last week: "Epic collection, friend. Your music is all filled up. To save more, you'll need to remove some songs." I couldn't believe my eyes so I searched in the Spotify forum for some answers and found the thread Increase maximum songs allowed in "Your Music" of currently over 159 pages with users complaining about that the limit in Your Music is only 10000 songs. And Spotify doesn't seem to be interested in increasing that limit. I signed up for premium approx. 1 year ago because I bought a new MBPr with a smaller SSD with not enough free space for my iTunes collection. I did the AM trial but didn't like it and barely used it at all. Spotify seemed to hit the spot for everything that I wanted and needed, until I hit that 10k song limit a few days ago.

 

[Plutonius]

I have no desire to rent music.

 

[MLMcMillion]

I absolutely hate Spotify's focus on tracks and playlists. It always seemed so hard to just listen to a record on there. Never mind the fact that it seemed to continually post to Facebook even when I removed its permissions.

Yep, which is why I still use Apple Music more. Spotify has a poorer selection (of the stuff I listen to) and has a lot of albums that are missing tracks or censored. And it's never worked with my personal collection.

That being said, I still use it to find playlists of mood music and to try to discover new artists. It definitely wins in that arena. Really annoyed that I still have to use/pay for two apps, though.

 

[stan1028]

In Singapore, one of the carriers here launched 'Singtel Music' whereby it's a premium subscription plus no extra data charges when streaming or downloading.

I guess that's what increased it a little bit.

 

[JawnVawka]

I prefer Apple Music because I can just add music to my library. Not the case with Spotify (at least at the time when I had Spotify). Plus one less app I need on my phone. And since spotydl no longer works I moved away from Spotify. I now use ondesoft's iTunes converter which downloads and removes the DRM from Apple Music songs so I can put them on my iPod classic which I keep in my car.

 

[dan110]

This doesn't surprise me at all. The UI for iTunes and Apple Music are horrible. People start to look at 3rd party alternatives to fill the gap.

 

[Loge]

It would be interesting to know how many paying subscribers to Spotify actually have it bundled in some way (via their cell phone plan for example).

 

[Cayden]

I only have one reason to use Apple Music: rare albums. I have tons of exclusive vinyls and CD's that are not on Spotify or iTunes and I need these in my music. With Spotify I can't mix my purchased music and my streamed music, which I can easily do on Apple Music. Although Apple Music is a hell of a mess (I've had my streaming library deleted 2 separate times) it has gotten significantly better since its first release so I have hope it'll keep getting better

 

[480951]

Spotify was great for me until the following notification popped up last week: "Epic collection, friend. Your music is all filled up. To save more, you'll need to remove some songs." I couldn't believe my eyes so I searched in the Spotify forum for some answers and found the thread Increase maximum songs allowed in "Your Music" of currently over 159 pages with users complaining about that the limit in Your Music is only 10000 songs. And Spotify doesn't seem to be interested in increasing that limit. I signed up for premium approx. 1 year ago because I bought a new MBPr with a smaller SSD with not enough free space for my iTunes collection. I did the AM trial but didn't like it and barely used it at all. Spotify seemed to hit the spot for everything that I wanted and needed, until I hit that 10k song limit a few days ago.

It's actually worse than that, as you're limited to 3300 songs per device. I only used my iPhone for Spotify, so I didn't get the other 6700 song downloads I was capped to. That's way too few.

 

[vahdyx]

I maybe going Spotify. Only because I switch between iPhone and Android frequently and I'm looking into CarPlay and Android Auto. Since Spotify is on both seems like the better way to go.

 

[vertsix]

The Music app uses more power than SoundCloud for me, with absolutely every possible online feature turned off.

Terrible app and terribly sluggish interface, even on the 6s.

 

[akuma13]

I maybe going Spotify. Only because I switch between iPhone and Android frequently and I'm looking into CarPlay and Android Auto. Since Spotify is on both seems like the better way to go.

Apple Music is on Android too. Apple Music edges out Spotify for the better audio quality and international music. It's the only place where I can find current KPOP and European acts.

 

[Jakexb]

Spotify continues to operate at a loss due to expensive royalties and revenue sharing with music label partners, but the Swedish company expects to eventually become profitable through continued subscriber growth​

What's the old joke? Selling at a loss, but making it up in volume?

How do they plan to keep running?

 

[vahdyx]

Apple Music is on Android too.

Right but that's not a concern. It's not on Android Auto which is my concern. Since I'll be using CarPlay and Android Auto, I can't use Google Music or Apple Music without killing the opposing connected car solution.

 

[Jakexb]

Really surprised to see people so critical of Apple Music here. I love the iOS app and hope they don't change it much at all. The itunes version though, I hope they start completely over. It's crazy bad.

 

[vahdyx]

Really surprised to see people so critical of Apple Music here. I love the iOS app and hope they don't change it much at all. The itunes version though, I hope they start completely over. It's crazy bad.

They're changing the interface so it doesn't matter.

 

[zardoz320]

It becomes more and more obvious for me that this could really become one of Apples worst years.
There is stagnation everywhere.

Introduce a really flawless Apple Music service from the beginning? Nah! We are Apple, people love us, we will outgrow Spotify!

iPhone sales are down? Let's make a new iPhone similar to the last two ones with little changes and make no big flagship redesign!

Watch sales are not satisfying? Let's make new bands!

iPad sales are down? Let's name it a Pro device and make it more expensive with more expensive accessories! Customers don't need no new iPad mini or Air 3!

Mac sales are down? Let's just take them as they are and don't upgrade them! Some products are now 1698 (!!!) days old, who needs an update? Who needs a dedicated GPU in the 4K iMac? Who doesn't want to have 5400rpm hard drives in their "most advanced" machines?

Watch sales are still not satisfying? Let's make new bands!

Want to revolutionize the "future of television"? Let's cut the optical audio output port to increase the margin and focus on 1080p (maybe they did that because nobody shoots 4K with 16GB of storage ). Double the price so more and more customers can get them in their home! But don't rework the UI, make it white, that's enough!


Oh jeeeeez, like one of you said in a news earlier today, it seems like they are not even trying anymore. It's becoming an "We are Apple, we can do that with our customers" attitude which gives me sleepless nights because my beloved company is going down ☹️☹️☹️

How typical of people who just don't understand how markets work. Apple has crushed sales figures like no other company in history for 13 straight years, and if you look at YTY earnings prior to the 6 and 6 Plus coming out with the bigger form factor coming out Apple is actually on the same line of earnings progress they always have been. The 6(s) and 6(s) Plus drew monster sales and revenue that were beyond anything even Apple had seen before, now that the novelty has worn off everybody's all like it's the end of Apple. Puhlease!

Watch sales are still blowing anybody else's products away in earnings, which is what Apple and any company should ever care about. Samsung and the other watch companies are giving away their stuff, just like they do with the PC/laptop/tablet/phone market and make next to nothing on them compared to Apple. Are they selling more than Apple? Absolutely. Are they actually making any money on it? Nope! But Apple is!

Macs haven't been updated because Intel has stopped their Tick/Tock chip upgrade cycle and Silverlake chipsets have been delayed time and again. How do you upgrade your PC line based on Intel products when there are no new Intel products??? Fail.

As to Spotify's subscriber base increasing at a more rapid rate than prior to Apple Music, well of course it is. Big name player like Apple gets into the game, and everybody starts paying attention more. Let's take a look at the sales growth numbers for each company on the chart below:

Apple sales are practically vertical in the first 2 months in business, vs a very flat line for Spotify until Apple changes the game yet again with another new market. Did you expect 33M subscribers for Apple Music in the first 3 months? Kinda silly if you did. Apple will constantly retune it's services like it always does, make them best in class like it always does, and create a much bigger and more diverse market for this part of the industry.

Next victim please...

 

[npmacuser5]

Interesting article on the cost of things like music streaming, coffee, etc over a lifetime.
Link: http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/09/retirement/save-more-retirement/index.html?iid=hp-stack-dom
Music will cost $32,919 at $9.99 a month.
Big numbers on sum of our gotta haves.

 

[oldmacs]

Spotify is much better - simpler to use and faster to stream.

 

[newyorkone]

Not that it was needed, but more proof that Eddie Cue should be fired, like yesterday...

 

[v0lume4]

NO. Not even close. Tidal is better than Spotify. Plus their search actually works. I'm sorry but in my experience trying to locate a popular record on Spotify can be difficult. That's why I was glad to switch once Tidal and AM became viable options.

Color me ignorant--is Tidal that service that Jay Z or Kanye or one of those guys launched?

 

[dwaltwhit]

Civil competition helps everyone, including consumers

 

[Precision Gem]

I don't get the Apple Music hate. I've been using it for a while and I like it. The only thing I feel like Spotify does better are the playlists, because the playlists and recommended music in Apple Music is terrible. Also having everything synced through icloud is great.

I don't get the hate either. To me Apple Music is very simple to use, and I have had no issues with it. I had the free 3 months and have converted to paid family plan after that ran out. I dropped Netflix as there were never any movies to stream other than C or B grade old things at best. Am getting a lot more for my money with Apple Music.