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

[AxiomaticRubric]

Blame that on the record companies extravagant fees.

Just to clarify, the extravagant fees of the performing rights organizations: usually ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC.

 

[AxiomaticRubric]

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.

All that, and the great majority percentage of royalties are intercepted by the PROs. Let’s start with the biggest elephants in the room first and then we can tackle the smaller ones like Spotify and Apple Music.

 

[Rob_2811]

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 never stops crowing about the number of active devices it has in the wild when gauged as a percentage of the install base AM numbers are hardly impressive. Particularly as they give subs away free with carrier contracts in the US and UK.

I wonder how many active subscribers Spotify has using iPhones? Most people I see here in the UK seem to be using Spotify and a lot of them on iPhones.

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

Its only been out for just over four years?!

 

[MadeTheSwitch]

And to think all these people pay for compressed audio. Hahaha.

Compressed audio is just fine for most people. Do you think I can tell the difference in a car with all the road noise? I cannot. Or in my headphones while walking? Nope. And that’s the places I play music the most.

Additionally, as you get older your ears won’t hear all the detail anyway.

 

[malexandria22]

Apple never stops crowing about the number of active devices it has in the wild when gauged as a percentage of the install base AM numbers are hardly impressive. Particularly as they give subs away free with carrier contracts in the US and UK.

I wonder how many active subscribers Spotify has using iPhones? Most people I see here in the UK seem to be using Spotify and a lot of them on iPhones.




Its only been out for just over four years?!

You wonder about Spotify’s Churn rate but nit AM simply because you had AM for 5 yrs? So are you assuming AM doesn’t have anhi

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

You wonder about Spotify’s Churn rate but nit AM simply because you had AM for 5 yrs? So are you assuming AM doesn’t have a high Churn rate because you like AM?

 

[supercoolmanchu]

All that, and the great majority percentage of royalties are intercepted by the PROs. Let’s start with the biggest elephants in the room first and then we can tackle the smaller ones like Spotify and Apple Music.

I reject your premise. They deserve no quarter in this argument, so here’s why you’ll never make sergeant:

Spotify (foreign company) is big enough to spend millions for years on US political lobbying, and to game both the legal system and music business. They’ve weighted the scales on music streaming regulations passed by both parties.

They are a primary obstacle as streaming is the predominant source of consumer revenue. Spotify is also directly upstream from both major and indie artists for royalty collection/distribution.

 

[Shanghaichica]

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.

I’m the same. All of my contacts use android phones (not cheap ones). The only people I have that use iPhones are my mum and cousin. Both of them use what’s app even though they have iPhones.

 

[bpp85]

I’m the same. All of my contacts use android phones (not cheap ones). The only people I have that use iPhones are my mum and cousin. Both of them use what’s app even though they have iPhones.

Same here, i noticed it’s quite similar across the EU like that, unfortunately iPhone/Apple has a reputation of being overpriced and people who buy them “just don’t know any better”. I even know some people who have iPhones and they didn’t even turn on iMessage it’s all whatsapp, Spotify etc

 

[Soccertess]

All this nonsense about number of subscribers. As always, Apple's goal isn't to be number 1 in any category. Often Apple ends up number one in a category simply because it blows away the competition, but that's not what Apple sets out to do. Instead, Apple focuses on a quality experience for its customers that also produces a good profit or adds value to its ecosystem, often both.

If Apple wanted to have its numbers soar, it could simply offer a free, ad supported tier like Spotify, but again, that's not how they operate. They don't want to offer an ad interrupted experience for music listening. Spotify, on the other hand, was created by venture capitalists who were focused on running up the numbers and then selling out in an IPO. That's why they ran up massive losses and created a broken business model for the company that lives on.

The public Spotify is now doomed with a service that, despite paying artists about half what Apple Music does, and having by far the largest number of subscribers in the world, can't raise prices to keep up with costs and make a decent profit. That's because music streaming, despite some people defending their "tribal" choice, is now essentially a "commoditized " product where they all offer essentially the same product, so most consumers will make their choice based on price.

Spotify can't raise prices, but they are competing against Apple, Amazon and Google, who can leverage their music streaming businesses as part of many revenue streams, which is why Spotify is desperately trying to get something going with podcasts, and why they are desperately running to the EU with a laughable claim that they have been hurt by the App store. Spotify is again trying to hold on in the hopes that someone buys them out and adds them as a "feature" to their line up, Disney maybe? as they are petrified at the prospect that Apple will bundle Apple Music with other services.
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Let us save you some money on your anger management classes- the Apple Watch has allowed you to use Spotify for some time, and recently Spotify finally released their own App for the watch to add more features.

Do you work for Apple? Your statement is very disingenuous and dishonest. That's why you should disclose if you work for Apple. You should know that the Spotify app is ONLY a remote, and nothing close to what Apple Music is.

And I'm going to quote tegranjeet here as to why:

"The Apple Watch API doesn't supply methods for making HTTP requests and opening up streaming sockets. At least they didn't for a while. You had to sync with the phone app to get data. Although that might be changing in watchOS 6"

 

[truthertech]

Do you work for Apple? Your statement is very disingenuous and dishonest. That's why you should disclose if you work for Apple. You should know that the Spotify app is ONLY a remote, and nothing close to what Apple Music is.

And I'm going to quote tegranjeet here as to why:

"The Apple Watch API doesn't supply methods for making HTTP requests and opening up streaming sockets. At least they didn't for a while. You had to sync with the phone app to get data. Although that might be changing in watchOS 6"

Hey, I know that's not what you see in the "news," but it's ok to disagree with someone without attacking them personally. Here, for example, you could have actually tried to refute the point I was making. I responded to someone who said he was angry because Apple was denying him the ability to have Spotify on his watch. In reality, nothing was further from the truth. Apple has long allowed Spotify to be accessed on the watch, and it was Spotify's refusal, not Apple's fault, to make an app for the AW that made it less than a great experience.

Spotify finally released an app and now proudly exclaims how great it is on the AW. If you don't like how their app functions, get hold of Spotify.

 

[Soccertess]

Hey, I know that's not what you see in the "news," but it's ok to disagree with someone without attacking them personally. Here, for example, you could have actually tried to refute the point I was making. I responded to someone who said he was angry because Apple was denying him the ability to have Spotify on his watch. In reality, nothing was further from the truth. Apple has long allowed Spotify to be accessed on the watch, and it was Spotify's refusal, not Apple's fault, to make an app for the AW that made it less than a great experience.

Spotify finally released an app and now proudly exclaims how great it is on the AW. If you don't like how their app functions, get hold of Spotify.

I’m attacking the twisting of the truth of your original post that equates Spotify limited app with Apple Music, except Apple is using it’s monopolistic powers to not allow Spotify the same functionality. Hence of course Spotify would say we are on the watch OS too to attempt to remain competitive, but are operating within the limited boundaries allowed by Apple. Consumers lose out because of lack of competition from Apple leveraging it’s monopolistic position.

Again, Apple does not allow the same functionality that your original post conveniently forgets to mention and which is the point of a Music app! I pointed out that there is a technician limitation that Apple has created, but you ignored that and said, blame Spotify because of their marketing position.

My original post was about anger at due to lack of alternatives, and your first pointed out my anger was not warranted because Spotify has an app. Now you changed your argument to “blame Spotify if the app sucks”, even though the operating system doesn’t give them the freedom that Apple Music enjoys.


I’m only interested in calling a spade a spade, not blaming anyone else but Apple for lack of competition.

 

[gnasher729]

108M paid subscribers and they still teeter on the edge of profitability?

There are the fully paid subscribers, and subscribers paying for the app with adverts, at a lot cheaper price. And I think the second category is a lot bigger. Or you might have a subscription that can be used by multiple people. If you get four subscribers with one payment, do you count the as four or as one?

I wouldn't compare the number of subscribers, but monthly revenue from subscribers.