Spotify Grows to 87M Paid Subscribers and 191M Monthly Active Users

[Ebok]

How many of you streamers had a music collection to begin with that you abandoned in favour of streaming?

I love the idea of streaming but it feels wasteful to abandon my collection.. I feel like I might just be better to keep buying cds/iTunes as

The only bummer for me is that sonos doesn’t stream purchased music from my phone as well as it does with streaming services

well, i used to pirate music up until i discovered Apple Music.. and frankly so did almost everyone i know. i do not know 1 person who paid for music that was around my age.

the only reason i stopped pirating music is because for $10/month it's easy to manage my library and basically every song out there is available to me. before i had to find the song on youtube/torrent, download, rename it, find album art and then sync my iPhone with iTunes.. lol crap load of work to save $1/song but i did it for all my life.

when i subscribed to Apple Music, i added all my songs manually from my personally library (took hours to add + create all my playlists) to those on Apple Music so artists would get paid for me listening to their music. also some of the older songs i had from the early 2000's were horrible quality so it was refreshing to hear music from my childhood in crisp quality.

streaming is where it's at, IMO.. people still torrent/youtube music but it's not as bad as it was before.

 

[JamesMay82]

How old are you.. I’m 36 and I’d say 25% if mine was from torrenting but most is from cd/iTunes purchases. I’d been buying cds since I was 12 and I’ve probably spent a couple grand over the years I guess..

It’s interesting to see how things are changing..

The sad part of me is all the job losses that come with streaming.. all the indie record shops and big box retailers that have gone bust/ ditched cd departments etc

 

[Ebok]

How old are you.. I’m 36 and I’d say 25% if mine was from torrenting but most is from cd/iTunes purchases. I’d been buying cds since I was 12 and I’ve probably spent a couple grand over the years I guess..

It’s interesting to see how things are changing..

The sad part of me is all the job losses that come with streaming.. all the indie record shops and big box retailers that have gone bust/ ditched cd departments etc

29.. i was pirating music since i was 12 when i got my first mp3 player.

 

[FaasNat]

The best part of these services isn’t their song selection but rather the way salespeople in stores and chatty people on the bus leave me alone when they think I am listening to something.

Well worth $10 a month.

You just need headphones in/on your ears for that.

 

[4jasontv]

You just need headphones in/on your ears for that.

You would think, and yet, they still talk.

 

[FaasNat]

I’m loving Spotify more than Apple Music. Discovering more songs and because of a promo where I live, I got it free for a year.

Apple Music layout is also an eye sore.

(was an Apple Music user for 2yrs)

Should have gone with iSore.

 

[Futurix]

Do we know of a reason why? My money is on apple not allowing functionality (offline playlist, LTE streaming or other)

Your money would be lost. Apple removed restrictions with watchOS 5, so why Spotify still refuses to make the app is unknown.

 

[4jasontv]

Your money would be lost. Apple removed restrictions with watchOS 5, so why Spotify still refuses to make the app is unknown.

How profitable is developing exclusively the LTE segment? I’ve noticed most Watch apps are not dedicated apps and require the phone to be within Bluetooth range. Maybe they can’t justify the expense based on the user base size?

 

[Luap]

With that many paying subs, Spotify should be able to pay the artists properly at last instead of only themselves.

 

[Brenster]

How many of you streamers had a music collection to begin with that you abandoned in favour of streaming?

I love the idea of streaming but it feels wasteful to abandon my collection.. I feel like I might just be better to keep buying cds/iTunes as

The only bummer for me is that sonos doesn’t stream purchased music from my phone as well as it does with streaming services

Got a CD collection of 1500+ discs going back over 30 years. All ripped into iTunes for mobile listening and lossless for Sonos streaming within the house. Have a select few titles merged in with Apple Music’s iCLoud Library, titles not of the streaming services carry (Beatles In Mono boxset first and foremost).

Happily pay for Apple Music, former Spotify Premium subscriber, and also still by physical media - most huge super deluxe box sets (Appetite for Destruction, Village Green Preservation Society and the forthcoming White Album set in the past couple of months alone).

Apple Music streaming, iTunes purchases and physical purchases are not either/or for me; I do all three. (Cf buying hardback books, Kindle books and Audible audiobooks).

 

[Smearbrick]

I am a Spotify user myself (like it better than Apple Music) but I wouldn’t call this an unfair advantage.

Apple makes the iPhone. I think they should be able to do whatever they want with it. There is a substitute for almost all of the native apps. Do you think the iPhone should come without any apps so more people will download skype for calling, Spotify for music, opera for web browsing and so on?

You had the option to install other web browsers under Windows, but that didn’t stop regulators from finding that Microsoft engaged in anticompetitive practices.
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Got a CD collection of 1500+ discs going back over 30 years. All ripped into iTunes for mobile listening and lossless for Sonos streaming within the house. Have a select few titles merged in with Apple Music’s iCLoud Library, titles not of the streaming services carry (Beatles In Mono boxset first and foremost).

Happily pay for Apple Music, former Spotify Premium subscriber, and also still by physical media - most huge super deluxe box sets (Appetite for Destruction, Village Green Preservation Society and the forthcoming White Album set in the past couple of months alone).

Apple Music streaming, iTunes purchases and physical purchases are not either/or for me; I do all three. (Cf buying hardback books, Kindle books and Audible audiobooks).

At the prices Amazon is charging for older CDs you can’t go wrong with buying physical media. Glad to hear I’m not the only one!

 

[tkermit]

How many of you streamers had a music collection to begin with that you abandoned in favour of streaming?

I love the idea of streaming but it feels wasteful to abandon my collection.. I feel like I might just be better to keep buying cds/iTunes as

The only bummer for me is that sonos doesn’t stream purchased music from my phone as well as it does with streaming services

Apple Music is the best of all worlds to me. I've purchased about half of the songs in my collection, the other half got added through Apple Music for a total of about 30k songs. I don't see myself ever abandoning the (overwhelmingly lossless) tracks that I own. Nor have I stopped purchasing CDs and lossless downloads on Bandcamp etc. whenever I've discovered music of lasting value on Apple Music.

 

[JamesMay82]

Got a CD collection of 1500+ discs going back over 30 years. All ripped into iTunes for mobile listening and lossless for Sonos streaming within the house. Have a select few titles merged in with Apple Music’s iCLoud Library, titles not of the streaming services carry (Beatles In Mono boxset first and foremost).

Happily pay for Apple Music, former Spotify Premium subscriber, and also still by physical media - most huge super deluxe box sets (Appetite for Destruction, Village Green Preservation Society and the forthcoming White Album set in the past couple of months alone).

Apple Music streaming, iTunes purchases and physical purchases are not either/or for me; I do all three. (Cf buying hardback books, Kindle books and Audible audiobooks).

I’ve got some questions! How are you intergrating your ITunes cd/purchased library with Apple Music? I heard it’s can mess up libraries.. mainly with artwork etc. Or am I thinking of iTunes Match?

I’m having a nightmare with sonos streaming.. the songs keep skipping when played from my phone. Sonos weren’t much help as they kept telling me to change wireless channels which I did but gave up after awhile!

 

[unobtainium]

How many of you streamers had a music collection to begin with that you abandoned in favour of streaming?

I love the idea of streaming but it feels wasteful to abandon my collection.. I feel like I might just be better to keep buying cds/iTunes as

The only bummer for me is that sonos doesn’t stream purchased music from my phone as well as it does with streaming services

I used to have thousands of ripped CDs and MP3s. Now I have hundreds of Spotify playlists. It's really just so much better.

 

[Jdshewman]

I have been a Spotify Premium subscriber for several years and the service is great. I love and own most of Apple's products, but Apple Music is too over the top and corporate for me. The Spotify playlists are curated great coming from a person who listens to a lot of Indie music. I just want simplicity and quality content.

 

[Exxhara]

So much this. Spotify is simply the better app and service, in almost every measureable metric. User interface, song discovery algorithms, features and controls, etc etc.

Anyone who says Apple Music is better is simply flat-out wrong, IMO.

Used SPOTIFY for many years but had a terrible experience. Most new songs are released a lot later and hated the black on black user interface. Been an Apple Music ever since. It's been 3 years or so and I'm a happy customer. Totally worth the $9 a month.

 

[Aston441]

I wish Apple would invest a little money in their music discovery algorithms. I’ve found so many niche artists and songs I absolutely love over the past few years with Spotify, but Apple seems to suggest nothing but mainstream radio hits or hip hop. It’s baffling because Apple has nearly unlimited resources to devise algorithms of their own. I’m starting to suspect the problem is the user base of the two platforms. Spotify partly works by suggesting songs that users with similar taste listen to. Maybe Apple Music doesn’t have enough listeners that listen to things other than rap or mainstream pop?

A better algorithm is child's play and could be implemented tomorrow if a Apple wanted to. The constant push towards HH/rap is DELIBERATE.

I cannot imagine anyone raising a child, especially a daughter allowing access to Apple music.

 

[Futurix]

How profitable is developing exclusively the LTE segment? I’ve noticed most Watch apps are not dedicated apps and require the phone to be within Bluetooth range. Maybe they can’t justify the expense based on the user base size?

It’s not exclusively LTE - same app would be able to stream over WiFi. Certainly would be more profitable than developing for a niche Android watch...

In fact it is notable how Apple Watch is less and less dependent on iPhone tethering with every watchOS version. Even the original Watch could do an awful lot untethered (with known WiFi networks), and all watches that got watchOS 5 can connect to brand new WiFi networks while untethered.

Oh, and watchOS 5 allows apps to cache music locally, on the Watch. One more step towards Watch independence

 

[spiddyman007]

Spotify today reported its third quarter earnings for 2018, announcing that paid subscribers for its streaming music service have grown to 87 million and total monthly active users (including the free tier) now reach 191 million. This is an increase from 83 million paid subscribers and 180 million total users that Spotify had in July 2018.

In terms of year-over-year growth, paid subscriber numbers have grown 40 percent in comparison to 2017 and MAUs have grown 28 percent. Spotify touted its various multi-partner bundles as a big help to signing up new subscribers, which are also retaining users for longer and driving churn lower. The latest bundle includes Spotify, Hulu, and Showtime for $4.99/month for students.

Spotify is in an ongoing race with Apple Music to add more subscribers, and as of now Spotify is still winning in terms of paid subscribers. It's been a while since we've heard news of updated Apple Music subscriber numbers, with the last count in April 2018 putting Apple's service at 40 million paid subscribers. Apple Music does not have a free tier like Spotify, but counting users on the three-month free trial along with paid users, Apple's service hit over 50 million subscribers in May 2018.

These numbers refer to global paid subscriber users, and in a report over the summer it was suggested that Apple Music is actually ahead of Spotify's paid subscriber count in the United States. Both Apple Music and Spotify were said to have more than 20 million paid subscribers in the U.S. as of July 2018, and at the time Apple was "a hair ahead" of its rival.

Looking into the fourth quarter of 2018, Spotify expects paid subscribers to reach 93-96 million users, while monthly active users are predicted to break the 200 million user milestone and sit somewhere between 199-206 million users globally.

Article Link: Spotify Grows to 87M Paid Subscribers and 191M Monthly Active Users

Love Spotify. Wish Siri could control it tho.

 

[BushySquirrel]

been with spotify since day dot, but going to leave soon as i need better quality music. Spotify quality is rubbish

 

[4jasontv]

It’s not exclusively LTE - same app would be able to stream over WiFi. Certainly would be more profitable than developing for a niche Android watch...

In fact it is notable how Apple Watch is less and less dependent on iPhone tethering with every watchOS version. Even the original Watch could do an awful lot untethered (with known WiFi networks), and all watches that got watchOS 5 can connect to brand new WiFi networks while untethered.

Oh, and watchOS 5 allows apps to cache music locally, on the Watch. One more step towards Watch independence

You mean it COULD be able to stream over LTE or WiFi. My point is that most of my installed 3rd party apple watch apps don't work over LTE. I can't find one that works when my phone is off. Building for LTE is a risk since most Apple watches don't have it - or at least I worry that's why developers are not rushing to support it.

As far as the other watches go - I have a suspicion. Spotify for smartwatches runs on three different OSs: wear, gear, and garmin. Lack of Apple support is weird until you consider that the apps came out years ago when Fitbit had a big cut of the market - and Samsung, Garmin, and Google were looking to differentiate themselves. Some of the Spotify press-release verbiage makes it sound like the watch developers are building the apps for Spotify. Even the support pages feel like they were influenced by a partnership. Apple isn't going to develop a Spotify app, but the rest of them totally would.

Yeah, Watch Independence!

 

[AngstyKylo]

I prefer Spotify music discovery over Apple Music. I also find Apple Music mostly suggests American Rap and hip hop, both of which I don't like and therefore don't listen to. Strangely, Apple Music (al least on Homepod), can never find music I have bought via iTunes and have in my iTunes Match account.

This is the only reason I switched away from apple music after 6 months or so. I mean the integration on iOS is pretty nice and I didn't mind the UI - although still think coverflow feels so much nicer for choosing an album or track to play. However, the recommendations were just odd or just seemed to be people they had recently on their radio/interviews/exclusives etc.

 

[Dwalls90]

FYI: Spotify is testing an Apple Watch app:

https://reddit.com/r/apple/comments/9tkawq/its_happening_spotify_is_testing_an_apple_watch/

 

[Brenster]

I’ve got some questions! How are you intergrating your ITunes cd/purchased library with Apple Music? I heard it’s can mess up libraries.. mainly with artwork etc. Or am I thinking of iTunes Match?

I’m having a nightmare with sonos streaming.. the songs keep skipping when played from my phone. Sonos weren’t much help as they kept telling me to change wireless channels which I did but gave up after awhile!

My primary iTunes account with my main library is kept on my Mac, completely with no Apple Music or ICloud Music Library enabled on it. I have a second user account on my Mac with a second, blank iTunes library on it. I've enabled AM and iCML on this account; anything I want to add to iCloud Music Library I copy over from my main user account/iTunes Library. I can then 'correct' any messed up metadata and album art as and when I add an individual disc/box set in.

I originally made a copy of my iTunes music library and enabled iCML on it; big mistake. Way too much metadata screwed up and album art mangled. Adding ripped CDs in one at a time on the secondary iTunes/iCML account is my preferred way to go, correcting as I go as and when needed.

I've got three Sonos devices; Connect in the lounge, Play 3 in the kitchen and Play 1 in the bedroom. I made a copy of my primary iTunes library on a NAS drive I have connected to my wifi router under the stairs, with a folder for dropping copies of any new CD rips into. I mainly playback from the NAS drive, Apple Music and Audible. I've not tried streaming from my phone but I can see it being problematic if your wifi network is either congested or competing with neighbours for the same channel.

 

[JamesMay82]

My primary iTunes account with my main library is kept on my Mac, completely with no Apple Music or ICloud Music Library enabled on it. I have a second user account on my Mac with a second, blank iTunes library on it. I've enabled AM and iCML on this account; anything I want to add to iCloud Music Library I copy over from my main user account/iTunes Library. I can then 'correct' any messed up metadata and album art as and when I add an individual disc/box set in.

I originally made a copy of my iTunes music library and enabled iCML on it; big mistake. Way too much metadata screwed up and album art mangled. Adding ripped CDs in one at a time on the secondary iTunes/iCML account is my preferred way to go, correcting as I go as and when needed.

I've got three Sonos devices; Connect in the lounge, Play 3 in the kitchen and Play 1 in the bedroom. I made a copy of my primary iTunes library on a NAS drive I have connected to my wifi router under the stairs, with a folder for dropping copies of any new CD rips into. I mainly playback from the NAS drive, Apple Music and Audible. I've not tried streaming from my phone but I can see it being problematic if your wifi network is either congested or competing with neighbours for the same channel.

Wish I read this before! I bit the bullet on Saturday and made all the mistakes you made! I then set up 2nd account on laptop as I can’t swap between account on 1 computer as ties you in for 90 days log in etc.

Apple Music works great with Sonos and I just added in Apple Music gaps one at a time.. if did too many at once all the meta data got confused.. very weird huh?

It appears that Sonos connects and stream directly from the Apple Music servers once I’ve made the initial song selection from my phone as I was able to switch the phone off and the music continued to play.

When I originally complained to Sonos about the iPhone music cutting out they suggested I download app on the computer and steam from that which seemed to work better but the app is years out of date and quite clunky.

What Nas drive do you use?

I still have mixed feelings about streaming as I have so much invested in my own collection but I’d have quite a bit more to spend on cds to bring it up to date.