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Spotify Growing at Faster Pace Since Apple Music Launched Last Year

Monday May 9, 2016 1:16 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
SpotifyDespite the launch of Apple Music, which recently reached 13 million paid subscribers, rival service Spotify told Reuters that it has experienced a faster pace of growth since last June than beforehand.
"It's great that Apple is in the game. They are definitely raising the profile of streaming. It is hard to build an industry on your own," Jonathan Forster, a vice president and one of its first employees, told Reuters in an interview.

"Since Apple Music started we've been growing quicker and adding more users than before."
Spotify recently announced that it has 30 million paying customers, compared to around 20 million paid subscribers last June, while its total active user base has grown to nearly 100 million from 75 million a year ago.

Apple has not recently disclosed how many users it has on a three-month trial for an overall comparison, but Spotify remains over 2x to 2.5x larger than Apple Music in terms of paid subscribers worldwide.
"It would be terrible if we were just taking each other's users or to learn there was just a ceiling of 100 million users - I don't think that is the case," said Forster, who had just returned to Stockholm from the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California.
Apple Music has inevitably generated increased awareness of the concept of streaming music, which in turn has helped Spotify triple its paid subscriber base in just two years. The service, which launched in Europe in October 2008 and expanded to the U.S. in July 2011, had 10 million subscribers through May 2014.

Spotify continues to operate at a loss due to expensive royalties and revenue sharing with music label partners, but the Swedish company expects to eventually become profitable through continued subscriber growth. Spotify will also seek to earn increased revenue from advertising, concerts, merchandising, and video.

Spotify today announced that 12 new original series will be coming to the streaming music service this summer and fall, centered around music performances, music profiles, and music culture. Last year, the company also added video programming and podcasts from partners such as Comedy Central, ESPN, and MTV.

In related news, Spotify for iOS was recently updated with a new bottom navigation bar in lieu of its traditional slide-out "hamburger" menu.

Tags: Spotify, Apple Music Guide
[ 167 comments ]


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m.x
41 months ago
It becomes more and more obvious for me that this could really become one of Apples worst years.
There is stagnation everywhere.

Introduce a really flawless Apple Music service from the beginning? Nah! We are Apple, people love us, we will outgrow Spotify!

iPhone sales are down? Let's make a new iPhone similar to the last two ones with little changes and make no big flagship redesign!

Watch sales are not satisfying? Let's make new bands!

iPad sales are down? Let's name it a Pro device and make it more expensive with more expensive accessories! Customers don't need no new iPad mini or Air 3!

Mac sales are down? Let's just take them as they are and don't upgrade them! Some products are now 1698 (!!!) days old, who needs an update? Who needs a dedicated GPU in the 4K iMac? Who doesn't want to have 5400rpm hard drives in their "most advanced" machines?

Watch sales are still not satisfying? Let's make new bands!

Want to revolutionize the "future of television"? Let's cut the optical audio output port to increase the margin and focus on 1080p (maybe they did that because nobody shoots 4K with 16GB of storage ). Double the price so more and more customers can get them in their home! But don't rework the UI, make it white, that's enough!


Oh jeeeeez, like one of you said in a news earlier today, it seems like they are not even trying anymore. It's becoming an "We are Apple, we can do that with our customers" attitude which gives me sleepless nights because my beloved company is going down ☹️☹️☹️
Rating: 37 Votes
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magicschoolbus
41 months ago
I find Apple Music very difficult to use on all apple devices. It needs a redesign badly.
Rating: 34 Votes
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FSMBP
41 months ago
It's sad. Apple always used to be "late to the party" but whatever they created would be better than what was out there (ex. Copy/Paste, Multitasking in iOS, etc..). Now, they have a habit of being late & their products being inferior.
Rating: 31 Votes
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fel10
41 months ago
Well, it is the better one out of the two, so not surprised.
Rating: 17 Votes
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JPLC
41 months ago
Interface wins!

So far for the Dre investment... Ruined the original iOS Music app and drove away early adapters back to Spotify with a terrible UI, Hiphip flavoured radio and useless functionality.

And where the hell did Lovine and his great vision go?!
Rating: 14 Votes
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SteveJobs2.0
41 months ago
The real issue here is how a company of Apple's caliber was satisfied with releasing such a subpar product as Apple Music in the face of numerous well established competitors. I honestly don't understand their managers other than perhaps underestimating how deluded they are about Apple's invulnerability and infallibility in the consumer market.
Rating: 13 Votes
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dewski
41 months ago
yeah i left spotify for apple, but after the 3 months, i just wasnt digging the layout and navigation. I went back to spotify and have been happy.
Rating: 13 Votes
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Sanlitun
41 months ago
I had planned to leave Spotify last year but it is in fact the better system. AM for me has slightly better sound quality, but Spotify is worth it just for the Discover Weekly playlist and interface.

The music that AM shows me in the "For You" category is just a constant rehash of things I have already heard and it is never really presenting anything new to me. Spotify on the other hand has an uncanny way of finding something new or missed that I often really enjoy.
Rating: 11 Votes
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doomfront
41 months ago
I don't get the Apple Music hate. I've been using it for a while and I like it. The only thing I feel like Spotify does better are the playlists, because the playlists and recommended music in Apple Music is terrible. Also having everything synced through icloud is great.
Rating: 10 Votes
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Bbqthis
41 months ago
I absolutely hate Spotify's focus on tracks and playlists. It always seemed so hard to just listen to a record on there. Never mind the fact that it seemed to continually post to Facebook even when I removed its permissions.
Rating: 9 Votes

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