Spotify Grows to 108M Paid Subscribers Compared to Apple Music's 60M

[Herrpod]

Well, I wouldn't be surprised if Spotify paid MS and Sony for exclusivity... because it just doesn't make sense for Apple or Google to not be on Playstation/Xbox platform.

Granted, Apple and Google are trying to push their gaming services forward, but we all know Playstation/Xbox is the echelon when it comes to gaming. That's the standard by which Apple and Google compare themselves to. I'm not looking to pay for AirServer to use with my Xbox, I just prefer AppleMusic or YT Music to be on the platform.

I tried using Groove Music, upload some music. But for some reason... it's no longer working. I wouldn't be surprised its Microsoft doing... pushing users toward Spotify.

Groove was killed off by Microsoft awhile ago.

 

[genovelle]

212 million active users? That's a hell of a userbase, whether they're making money or not.
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That also means it requires a lot of resources to service and maintain. If they have such a huge base and are unprofitable means their model is flawed and once investors catch on they are toast.

 

[ipedro]

Apple Music IS also available on Android so your argument is moot on that point.

I didn't say that Apple Music isn't on Android. I said that "Apple Music is sold primarily to people on iPhones". Apple does virtually zero promotion on Android. That's not the intention of Apple Music on Android. It's there for multi platform households. You may have an iPhone and your wife might have an Android, in which case, the household would have no option but to default to Spotify if Apple Music weren't available.

The iTunes Store was available for Windows in the iPod era. Apple still pushed Macs and made virtually no mention of iTunes on Windows. Apple still wants to sell Apple hardware. They don't promote Apple Music to Android users. On the other hand, Spotify's primary market, and where the majority of its promotional resources go into, is the hundreds of Android handsets — a much bigger pool.

 

[Ludatyk]

Groove was killed off by Microsoft awhile ago.

I've known about the discontinuation of Groove Music, but I just now learned about this below.

Will I still be able to play music from OneDrive?

No. On March 31, 2019, OneDrive music streaming in Groove Music will be retired.

I uploaded music via OneDrive to play on Groove Music, now.. Microsoft closed that loophole.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Been a Spotify User for 7 yrs. Love them. Their interface is easy and their user based playlists are 2nd to none. I can always find a playlist for any mood I’m in. Even weird obscure things. I watch Happy Days and boom there’s a Happy Days Playlist.

I LOATHE Apple Music. Itunes Match destroyed my music library twice! When i tried Apple Music it did it Again! What’s worse it REPLACED my DRM free music which I PAID apple to remove yrs ago with DRM because whenever you downloaded music it Overwrote my own personal music. My music collection is so destroyed I basically no longer have a Collection thanks to Apple!

Just one of the many reasons I’m getting out of this severely broken “eco-system” in the fall.

Other than an I/O pathology on your part nothing you state is backed by any quantifiable reality.

 

[Hi Tek]

I would use Apple Music, but they have the whole DRM and what not. I have songs on my Mac as far back as 2002 maybe even before that... I ripped a EDM mix from Soundcloud that I listen to while I clean the house. If I use AM, I'll have issues listening to that song... Otherwise I'd love to addd my streaming situation to Apple's ecosystem

 

[Shanghaichica]

One of the reason I like Spotify is because the app is separate from the operating system. I can download music and create playlists without any cloud support.
Also they support older iOS devices and macOS all the way back to PowerPC.

Apple Music requires iCloud music to download and create playlists. That's fine as long as you don't have any music or playlists in iTunes. If you have nested playlists folders iCloud music removes them and places the folders back into the root directory messing up your custom settings.
My friend has gigabytes of custom music and copywrite music and it was trying to upload all that to his iCloud account. He had to turn iCloud music off and restore his iPhone from a backup to restore his playlists. So now he just streams from Apple Music, that's all.

I like Apple Music but the thing that irritates me about it is that I have my own music library. Anytime I get a new iPhone if I want to transfer my music to my phone and have it stored locally I have to turn iCloud music library off before I sync with iTunes. Otherwise it doesn’t get transferred over.

 

[Christian 5G]

I love my Spotify music.

if anybody else is a student or has access to edu email then there’s an ongoing deal for $4.99/month that includes Spotify, Hulu, and Showtime bundle here.

If you have a Touch Bar MacBook Pro then you can skip the commercials on Hulu

 

[supercoolmanchu]

So sue them for actually paying artist royalties.

Spotify? Coming from the artist side here, I know a few artists whose music was used on Spotify without their authorization.

Getting Spotify to stop and/or getting them to pay for just the playback royalties is a nightmare.

Add in their lowball royalty rates, just a terrible shady company from the musician side. There’s probably even a fair amount of artists who don’t even realize their music has been uploaded into Spotify’s catalog, and getting ripped off.

 

[Herrpod]

I love that on my Apple devices I can log into anyone's Spotify account, whereas with Apple music I can't do that without also changing who is logged into my Phone/iPad/Macbook.

 

[Gilligan's last elephant]

The metric of Apple Music success should be the Android App.
This would mean that Apple did a good job offering better features and value for money.

But I don’t hear good reviews on that front and don’t see much Marketing either. Most people think that if it’s Apple it shouldn’t work on Android.

Apple Music on Android is sub-par compared to the iOS version.
There isn't gapless playback with Android app which is ridiculous and ruins the flow of an album like Dark Side of the Moon, and one cannot advance to next track of an album/playlist by swiping across album art on screen. Almost a must when on a crosstrainer.

 

[Bawstun]

Spotify had a multi year lead and is the primary choice of customers hundreds of Android phones while Apple Music is sold primarily to people on iPhones. Apple Music is doing phenomenal by that metic. Not bad at all.

I think that Apple Music has positioned itself to take the lead in the near term. If my prediction is correct and there’s an + one subscription for Music and TV, then AppleTV+ will help push AppleMusic over Spotify. While Spotify focuses on podcasts and doesn’t have the resources to produce TV, Apple will have top tier TV productions for their subscribers.

Apple Music is awful and will never surpass Spotify, if user interface and good algorithms mean anything in business, anyway. It really isn’t even close. I’ve been a Spotify user since the early days in 2011, before mobile apps and back when you needed invites in order to join the service.
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A gap of 48 million between Apple music and Spotify.

Last year this time the gap was 43 million.

So the gap is growing

But you know, rather then report that, let’s fudge it and just talk about how Apple has a larger market share in the US.

Uhhh, did you miss the earnings report from yesterday? Apple is all about fudging and misrepresenting figures.
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Other than an I/O pathology on your part nothing you state is backed by any quantifiable reality.

Yikes at the levels of white-knighting fanboying you just displayed. Everything they said is true, Apple’s DRM is awful and does override existing tracks. It’s a huge mess, as is most things Apple releases these days.

 

[ipedro]

Apple Music is awful and will never surpass Spotify, if user interface and good algorithms mean anything in business, anyway. It really isn’t even close. I’ve been a Spotify user since the early days in 2011, before mobile apps and back when you needed invites in order to join the service.

You’ve just told everyone that you were so entrenched in Spotify, that you could never have given Apple Music enough of a chance to build a music taste profile for you. So yeah, there goes your credibility as an Apple Music critic.

I used Spotify and liked it but could never get over the juvenile UI. As a Music recommendation service, it was bar none, the best. Then Apple Music came out and I started using it as my primary music streaming service and as it got to know me, it’s been nothing but incredible at knowing what music to play at any given time of the day and introducing me to new music that it knows I’ll love based on what I listen to.

You would never know that because you just picked it up, looked at it and wrote it off.

 

[Eorlas]

Spotify had a multi year lead and is the primary choice of customers hundreds of Android phones while Apple Music is sold primarily to people on iPhones. Apple Music is doing phenomenal by that metic. Not bad at all.

I think that Apple Music has positioned itself to take the lead in the near term. If my prediction is correct and there’s an + one subscription for Music and TV, then AppleTV+ will help push AppleMusic over Spotify. While Spotify focuses on podcasts and doesn’t have the resources to produce TV, Apple will have top tier TV productions for their subscribers.

God I hope not. Their interface and system is entirely lacking comparatively. Maybe when the service has matured.

 

[siddavis]

Apple Music is a small part of Apple's revenue stream while Spotify Music is 100% of Spotify's revenue stream.

I don't subscribe to either but I believe that Spotify needs to be bought out by someone in the future in order to survive in the long term.

Very interesting stats. With other companies, economies of scale usually kick in at some threshold. Spotify or any other platform does not necessarily benefit from volume selling - at least the royalty costs remain constant. The only thing I could see is maybe getting big enough to negotiate better deals and I guess hosting efficiencies, but I could be wrong.

 

[ipedro]

God I hope not. Their interface and system is entirely lacking comparatively. Maybe when the service has matured.

I’m not sure exactly what you’re commenting on but if I understand you right, you’ve misunderstood that I’m suggesting that Apple Music and Apple TV will be merged. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m anticipating that there will be an all encompassing Apple+ subscription that includes TV and Music in their own apps, also available individually for those who only want music, for example.

 

[skellener]

Makes me happy in the this case that Apple is NOT the dominant player in this arena. Competition is good. I don't want Apple to ever dominate content. Plus I find Apple's interface horrendous. That being said, I don't use ANY music streaming service. I find their content lacking. I still purchase music - even on CD if possible and directly from the artist when possible. I stream from my own Plex server.

 

[spiddyman007]

Spotify today announced that it has grown to 108 million paid subscribers globally as of June 30, 2019. That number is an increase from 100 million paid subscribers, which the company reported in April.

In total, there are 232 million monthly active users on Spotify, including the ones on the free version of Spotify. This is an increase of 29 percent year-over-year.

Comparatively, Apple Music was reported in June to have 60 million paid subscribers. Despite the difference in paid subscriber counts, Apple Music in early 2019 reportedly surpassed Spotify's paid subscriber total in the United States. Apple Music at the time had somewhere around 28 million U.S. subscribers, compared to Spotify's 26 million.

Spotify now predicts that it might have as many as 125 million paid subscribers by the end of Q4 2019.

Article Link: Spotify Grows to 108M Paid Subscribers Compared to Apple Music's 60M

That college Spotify is epic $5 for Hulu / premium/ and showtime (which sucks) good deal

 

[cinq2]

Apple Music on Android is sub-par compared to the iOS version.
There isn't gapless playback with Android app which is ridiculous and ruins the flow of an album like Dark Side of the Moon, and one cannot advance to next track of an album/playlist by swiping across album art on screen. Almost a must when on a crosstrainer.

This is my point exactly. Apple doesn't try hard enough on this. Spotify is clearly a better product for the most of people and that's why is winning.
I've tried both services and chosen Apple Music. Still it was a close call. There is no way I would have chosen Apple would I've been on Android.

 

[itr81]

I wonder what Spotify’s churn rate is? We’ve had AM for almost 5 years.

 

[Hi Tek]

I find their content lacking. I still purchase music - even on CD if possible and directly from the artist when possible. I stream from my own Plex server.

Compact Disk is a dying format. Curious what you'll be doing 10years from now. Even 5...

 

[atoqir]

my cousin in school was mobbed for using an iPhone. The classmates are basically like „look at this idiot spending so much money on this overpriced „crap““

Not to say that what I witness is in any way a good sample size but it’s funny, when I started university, everyone was using an iPhone. Now I am the only one in my group of people left with an iPhone.

last year I went to SF on vacation and I was like omg everyone has an Apple Watch and AirPods!

It really is a cultural thing. Just like we tend to buy everything out right cuz „buy now, pay later“ just means you can’t afford something. So offering an iPhone for „only“ 299€ with a half page of foot note doesn’t fly here.

Same. I had Android in the EU for years while everyone had iPhones. Two years ago I switched to iOS and iPhoneX. Now these days all the people I know have Android and I sometimes too get at work or family parties ‘yeah but you are the rich guy eh’

But I have a phone that lasts for years and they all have these cheap 89 dollar Androids that they switch every 6 months. And if I would buy Android again it would be a flagship.

The only thing I regret is that I don’t have anyone to use iMessage, AirDrop and other features with so I am forced to Android apps all the time.

 

[Shirasaki]

I have a huge local library, so Apple Music is automatically out of question for me.
Spotify is ok for discovering music as usual. But I don’t stream enough To justify paying for me.

 

[nburwell]

that’s dumb. The promotion only lasted a month and wasn’t widely spread. 108 million people didn’t sign to Spotify because of Hulu.

Not really. Yes, I'm sure the promo didn't garner a ton of people signing up for Spotify premium, but I'm sure it certainly helped (at least here in the states). I'm also pretty sure Hulu is quite popular, so why wouldn't people sign up to take advantage of the bundled deal?

 

[malexandria22]

Not really. Yes, I'm sure the promo didn't garner a ton of people signing up for Spotify premium, but I'm sure it certainly helped (at least here in the states). I'm also pretty sure Hulu is quite popular, so why wouldn't people sign up to take advantage of the bundled deal?

not to the tunecof 108 million people as the op was implying. I’d be shocked if it got a few hundred thisand people
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Other than an I/O pathology on your part nothing you state is backed by any quantifiable reality.

It’s backed by MY experience! In the future before making such an arrogant statement
do some research. google is your friend. a lot of people experienced this issue with iTunes Match and later Apple Music when it first launched. So before.