50 000 000 paying subscribers not counting trials. .99 cent promotions on the other hand do not guarantee returning customers, but inflate artificially the paying subscriber count.
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Spotify Reaches 96M Paid Subscribers Compared to Apple Music's 'Over 50 Million'
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Pretty sure I’ve read Apple also include both trial and paying
https://www.macrumors.com/2018/05/15/apple-music-50-million-total-users-paid-trial/
So Spotify inflates but Apple doesn’t?
Apple doesn’t count users on the free months as part of their paid subscriber count, that’s the whole point. These $1 subs do nothing except pad Spotify’s subscriber numbers and paint a rosier picture than it really is.
Right now they have 50 million paid excluding trial. Previous update stated 50 million including trials.
I am not saying Spotify can’t offer them. I am simply questioning the decision to include them as paid subscribers since there is no guarantee these users are going to stick around after three months anyways.
So amongst Spotify’s 96 million paid subscribers, not everyone is paying the full $10 per month, but they presumably incur the same costs as a paid user.
It’s the same old market share vs usage share argument all over again. On paper, Apple always has the lesser market share, but each user invariably proves more lucrative on average. I recall reading somewhere that Apple now has more paying subscribers in the US compared to Spotify, which is where they earn the bulk of their revenue (other countries tend to be heavily discounted to factor in the weaker exchange rates).
At the end of the day, most of the sustainability questions facing Spotify still aren't going away anytime soon. That to me ought to be the real question on everyone’s minds, not just the number of subscribers in a vacuum.
That said, Spotify is focused on keeping people on its platform, so branching out into podcast is a relatively low-risk endeavour. Also, time spent on Spotify not listening to music will likely be more profitable, since I assume Spotify won’t need to pay out royalties on podcasts they host.
So...still pay $10 a month, but stream less music (you aren’t listening to music if you listen to podcasts), so pay out less?
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Apple Music is basically built-in adware on my iPhone...When I use the Music app, I would get pop-ups to try Apple Music.
Gladly picked Spotify.
Gladly picked Spotify.
Spotify is to Apple Music as Microsoft Office is to iWork.
Apple does the same thing with the Verizon promos. There are currently two promos for 6 months of subsidized Apple Music and a new promo for completely subsidized Apple Music whether you're on iOS or Android. They both help their numbers.
Do you have a link to the info that says trials don't count towards Apple's subscriber numbers? I don't recall ever seeing that confirmation. To be fair, my recollection doesn't mean squat so your source on that claim would be appreciated.
Except it’s completely wrong.
I’ve stuck with Apple Music because I can upload the dozens of bootlegs I have and then stream them from anywhere. Does Spotify allow you to do this? If so, I may check it out.
Better apps, better discovery, and playable on more devices than Apple Music.
Apple has promo as well so your comparison is false.
Apple Music has free and reduced limited time promotions as well. I got Apple Music bundled in with my new EE contract. That's how I found out how substandard Apple Music is compared to Spotify. My son got the offer of deal on it on his last phone also.
Only knock against Apple Music is all the rap music it suggests no matter how much I dislike.
That's because its personal curation is still very much a mess.
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Apple's getting bodied in so many markets... maybe they should go back to making good computers?
I canceled my Spotify sub because Verizon gives Apple Music for free. I am having a hell of a time trying to adapt. My favorite thing to do with Spotify is keep playlists for certain genres and listen to a radio based on those playlists. Also I like to keep the playlists up to date with new things I find in radio. Can't do any of that in Apple Music. Icing on the cake is everytime I add a song to my playlist, it adds it wither it's there or not. So I end up with duplicates.
Please provide sources to back this up.
Spotify is $ 9.99 in USA I believe.
It is £9.99 in UK, so we pay more. I expect it is more in EU as well.
Edit: I know £9.99 includes VAT, but it is still more expensive after VAT is removed.
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A few things:
(1) The bigger issue (than the $0.99 trial subscribers) when it comes to premium subscriber numbers is the effect of Spotify's family plan. A single family plan subscription can account for up to 6 premium subscribers as each user is counted separately. The same is the case for Apple Music.
(2) That said, in addition to premium subscriber numbers, Spotify reports average revenue per user. For the last quarter that was €4.89 per month or around $5.57 per month. That's significantly lower than the standard cost of the individual plan rate mostly due to the use of family plans and student plans.
(3) When it comes to Spotify paying the same costs for those subscribers on $0.99 trials, I don't think it does. But, at any rate, we know that it either has significantly reduced costs (per subscriber) for them or there aren't that many of them. Spotify reports the cost of offering such discounted trials. For the third quarter of 2018 (we don't have numbers on this for the fourth quarter yet) they were a little more than 2% of Spotify's revenue from its premium service and about 3% of its costs for its premium service.
(4) Even accounting for the costs of offering discounted trials, Spotify enjoys pretty healthy gross margins on its premium service. For this past quarter it had a gross margin of 26% (27% if they include the effects of one-time items). That gross margin accounts for royalty costs as well as distribution and payment costs.
(5) As for you last sentence... that's not how Spotify's (or Apple Music's) business model works. For a given subscriber, Spotify doesn't pay less in royalties if they stream less music. Spotify isn't paying a set amount per stream. It is, some special contract terms aside, paying rights holders (in the aggregate) a set portion of the revenue it gets from subscriptions. For instance, recording rights holders have agreed to let Spotify offer individual subscriptions for, e.g., $10 per month and to be paid a specified portion of that $10. The pool of money rights holders receive doesn't increase or decrease based on how much particular subscribers stream. How the pool gets divided up is just determined by how much certain songs are streamed relative to how much other songs are streamed.
I think I might be the only person to be completely satisfied with Apple Music. It carried all my iTunes library to Apple Music and applied my listening history to all recommendations. It’s perfect. I’ve checked Spotify on friends phones and don’t like the design at all. It looks super busy with endless tabs and recommendations. Also, Spotify creates these really generic listening playlists with what I would call fake artists that sound like the real thing but are really not to avoid paying royalties to bigger names.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/12/15961416/spotify-fake-artist-controversy-mystery-tracks
https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/12/15961416/spotify-fake-artist-controversy-mystery-tracks
If I were to pay for music streaming service, I would pick Apple Music over Spotify since iTunes/Apple Music has more selections for my music taste compared to Spotify.
However, both are still lacking. There are still a ton of music not available for streaming, especially on Spotify. I tried multiple times for the free option and even tried premium for a few months, but the cost is not worth it for me since the music I want is not usually available.
However, both are still lacking. There are still a ton of music not available for streaming, especially on Spotify. I tried multiple times for the free option and even tried premium for a few months, but the cost is not worth it for me since the music I want is not usually available.
Can I ask what you listen to? I listen to a lot of experimental music and normally find most of the stuff in there. Some odd album is not on Apple Music. Like Silence is Sexy from Einstürzende Neubauten.
What's rosier is that people prefer to spend money on Spotify than use Apple Music for free. I pay for Spotify, but given the choice of free AM or $1 Spotify, I'd choose Spotify. That's the point!
Glad to hear, competition is good.
The ugly white on pink font on AM is reason enough for me not to use it and I say that as a gay person.
I also checked YouTube Premium but google is asking 17.99 € for it like what on earth are they smoking. That’s more than what I pay for Spotify and Netflix combined
The ugly white on pink font on AM is reason enough for me not to use it and I say that as a gay person.
I also checked YouTube Premium but google is asking 17.99 € for it like what on earth are they smoking. That’s more than what I pay for Spotify and Netflix combined
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Good to see that even with platform dominance a quality product still earns more paying customers.