Spotify Has Twice as Many Paid Subscribers as Apple Music

[Rigby]

Seriously impressive given that Spotify has been around for years. How is Spotify going to address the revenue loss?

What revenue loss?

They put themselves in this position of allowing people to expect free music with minimal annoyance and even added more functionality for free users down the line, but now they actually need to get those free users to pay...

They already have significant ad income from the non-paying users (it has doubled year-over-year), and they are currently planning to expand this business. They can now leverage 70 million active users of the ad-supported tier in addition to the 30 million paying users. I think they are in a very good position.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/spotify-looks-to-ramp-up-ad-business-1466416801

 

[vertsix]

What made you think Apple is in the 'free service' business?

I figured it'd be a good way to compel people to use its paid tier. Spotify gained more traction this way. A 3-month free trial is good but not enough.

 

[MacDarcy]

I'm the biggest Apple fan boy there is, but even I think they dropped the ball with their streaming music. I use Spotify when I wanna listen to a specific group or song, and Pandora when I don't wanna think about it. I never use Apple's music service. I dunno why. It just never grabbed me.

 

[CaTOAGU]

And yet Spotify has been going 8 times as long.

 

[Kaspersky]

Apple's investors every single day lately

 

[goobot]

Does anyone know at how many subscribers does Spotify become profitable?

 

[inkswamp]

I would have been a Spotify subscriber if it were not for the annoying choices they made for advertising leaving such a bad impression on me when I was testing their service out. The ads get VERY LOUD compared to the music and if you mute, the ad pauses, so you're constantly having to fiddle with the volume just to avoid having your eardrums blown out. That's just obnoxious all around and made me decide against becoming a paid subscriber.

 

[ipedro]

AM doesnt even have a browser interface. So impossible to consider for work

FYI: You're not allowed to DJ using Spotify or Apple Music. Public performances are explicitly prohibited. There's no use complaining about a lack of a feature that would enable you to illegally use the service.

 

[newdeal]

I am not interested in subscribers I am interested in profit. Spotify is losing large sums of money and its getting worse. Let me know when you can hash out if Apple is making or losing money on their service

 

[DrumApple]

And deservingly so!

Apple bought an inferior product, slapped an Apple logo on it and called it a day.

 

[Rigby]

And yet Spotify has been going 8 times as long.

People keep saying this as if it was a bad thing. They have pioneered this market for everyone else, including Apple. And they are growing roughly at the same pace as Apple Music in terms of subscribers, so I don't think Apple will surpass them anytime soon. But we'll see.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

Spotify grows by 0.6 m paying subscribers per month, so at the current rates, it'll take about 3 years for Apple Music to overtake Spotify (when they'll both have around 50m paying subscribers).

It's nice that Apple Music will have lyrics starting this fall, but they aren't time synced like on Spotify Desktop (where it lights up each line as it plays - plus you can scrub the lyrics, so you can have it jump to a specific verse or the chorus or something if you want.) Spotify needs to hurry up and get that feature on mobile... I don't understand why they haven't done that yet.

Also, more important than Spotify's losses growing by 10% y/y is that revenue is up 80% while spending is only up 70%. If they maintain that growth rate next year, their losses should shrink by around 50% for this year, and they'll be profitable next year.

 

[newdeal]

I would have been a Spotify subscriber if it were not for the annoying choices they made for advertising leaving such a bad impression on me when I was testing their service out. The ads get VERY LOUD compared to the music and if you mute, the ad pauses, so you're constantly having to fiddle with the volume just to avoid having your eardrums blown out. That's just obnoxious all around and made me decide against becoming a paid subscriber.

Could be worse, free Slacker radio has video ads that you have to spend 30 seconds watching...very irritating, especially if you skip a song in the car and it wants to play the video while you are driving and you have to press a button to clear the video before it will play the next song

 

[MH01]

Apple Music is going to blow away Spotify just like Apple Watch is going to blow away the Swiss watch industry. This should summarise the view of some posters on MR....

Reality is, Swiss watch industry is loosing no sleep, and Spotify is neither. Spotify benefited from the exposure that Apple Music gave streaming music.

Hoping for healthy competition going forward, cause Apple Music still needs to get its act together when it comes to UI , very un apple like . Hopefully I'm the near future it will morph into a service equal or better than Spotify. Right now Spotify UI is superior

 

[Captainscarlet22]

I switched to Apple Music from Spotify back in September and haven't looked back. I like the fact that I can just plug my phone into my car's USB port and select songs/playlist right from car's controls. No need to load the app then hit play or do any retrofitting of anything on the car.

 

[navaira]

I would have been a Spotify subscriber if it were not for the annoying choices they made for advertising leaving such a bad impression on me when I testing it out.

You know when you pay for it there are no ads, right?

People who just compare the new numbers miss the crucial fact: Spotify was – for most people – the first streaming app ever. Apple Music comes to an existing market. It's preinstalled on millions of iDevices. I'm actually surprised they only have 15 million subscribers. Also I would love to know how much money Apple is losing on AM – subscription price is the same and Apple have Beats 1 to support as well. Their specialty used to be coming into the market and doing it right, but with AM it's doing it wrong. Android version of Spotify is full of errors, but still works much much better than Apple Music for one simple reason – no cloud sync.

Right now Spotify UI is superior

Was, until they recently "updated" it. It's en eyesore right now with all the BOLD FONTS EVERYWHERE.

 

[Michael Scrip]

I am a fan that Spotify is providing a free tier. It has worked out well for them, clearly.

I've read reports that they are bleeding money because of the free tier.

Spotify has a scaling problem. Yes they're adding more customers... but they are the free customers.

And that costs them more money.

How much longer will investors keep writing checks to Spotify?

 

[bradkrischel]

FYI: You're not allowed to DJ using Spotify or Apple Music. Public performances are explicitly prohibited. There's no use complaining about a lack of a feature that would enable you to illegally use the service.

I think you might have misinterpreted. I believe this person is probably referring to a use-case of listening to Spotify on his/her work computer using a browser instead of a phone.

 

[Schwyz]

For the last few years, I've spent about $4/month on individual songs, amassing over 1000.

Much cheaper than any of these services.

 

[69Mustang]

FYI: You're not allowed to DJ using Spotify or Apple Music. Public performances are explicitly prohibited. There's no use complaining about a lack of a feature that would enable you to illegally use the service.

I think Bushido is talking about a desktop browser interface for when someone is at work. I don't think he was talking about DJ'ing with Spotify. I could be wrong, but it makes more sense that he's talking about a browser.

 

[AlekseyS]

I wish Spotify to be available in more countries ...

 

[pat500000]

No really....Eddie is a double agent...and actually works for Spotify. Lol.

 

[SMIDG3T]

Apple Music is one year old = 15 million paid subscribers.
Spotify is TEN years old = 30 million paid subscribers.

So, next year, if all goes as it has been going, Apple Music will have 30 million subscribers which would've taken them two years, it's taken Spotify ten years to reach that many (granted, things were different 10 years ago, but still).

 

[InfernoShade]

Actually, not surprising considering Apple Music is a massive mess from UX and UI point of view. Just my .02.

Have very little to do with the UX. Spotify has been around for way longer. And the UI is going to be updated.

 

[tomnavratil]

Apple Music is one year old = 15 million paid subscribers.
Spotify is TEN years old = 30 million paid subscribers.

So, next year, if all goes as it has been going, Apple Music will have 30 million subscribers which would've taken them two years, it's taken Spotify ten years to reach that many (granted, things were different 10 years ago, but still).

That is, unfortunately, a very wrong and inaccurate way of forecasting this.