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Spotify Has Twice as Many Paid Subscribers as Apple Music

Monday June 20, 2016 10:39 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Spotify-Apple-Music-logosSpotify confirmed to The Telegraph today that it now has more than 100 million monthly active users worldwide, including approximately 30 million monthly paying subscribers.

Comparatively, Apple services chief Eddy Cue announced at WWDC 2016 last week that Apple Music has 15 million paying subscribers, just two weeks before the streaming music service turns one year old. Apple Music was at 13 million subscribers in April and 11 million subscribers in February, meaning that it has been growing at a rate of about 2 million subscribers every two months.

Spotify, which launched in Europe in October 2008 and expanded to the U.S. in July 2011, thereby remains the world's most popular streaming service, but Apple Music is quickly closing the gap. Both services cost $9.99 per month for individuals and $14.99 per month for families, while only Spotify offers a free ad-supported tier.

Nevertheless, Spotify recently said that Apple Music has helped, not hurt, its business. Since Apple Music launched on June 30, 2015, its European rival has grown at a faster pace than beforehand. Spotify has now surpassed Skype as the most lucrative European startup, with an estimated valuation of roughly $8.5 billion.
"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."
Despite rising users and revenues, Spotify continues to operate at a loss due to expensive royalties and revenue sharing with music label partners. The report claims Spotify's losses rose by 10 percent to $195.7 million (173 million euros) last year, prompting some investors to question the viability of its business model.

Tags: Spotify, Apple Music Guide
[ 305 comments ]


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tomnavratil
41 months ago
Actually, not surprising considering Apple Music is a massive mess from UX and UI point of view. Just my .02.
Rating: 44 Votes
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Mac Fly (film)
41 months ago
Give it 2 years and Apple will be in the lead. Much to the chagrin of many an Apple-hating MR regular.
Rating: 28 Votes
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LordQ
41 months ago
Good for them but Apple Music suits my needs.
Rating: 27 Votes
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vertsix
41 months ago
Every time I use Apple Music the Music app gets progressively slower and glitchier. It's like it punishes you for using the service.

The Spotify app is flawless, I have yet to encounter a single issue. And the design is better. It is by far the best constructed iOS app I've encountered.
Rating: 22 Votes
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FoxMcCloud
41 months ago
Not bad for a service that has only been around a year. Spotify has been out what... 5 years now or more?
Rating: 20 Votes
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bushido
41 months ago
most used app on my iPhone and so easy to use.

AM doesnt even have a browser interface. Therefore impossible to consider for listening to music at work
Rating: 17 Votes
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iLoveiTunes
41 months ago
they had the head-start so, this should not be surprising.
Rating: 15 Votes
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co.ag.2005
41 months ago
I went back to Spotify after my Apple Music trial. I just like the curated playlists and user-shared playlists on Spotify. While I actually like Apple Music's UI, I am interested in test driving the new iOS 10 version. Will likely subscribe for a month or 2 in order to try it out again.
Rating: 12 Votes
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MH01
41 months ago

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's a somewhat of a maths/logic fail.

When Spotify started about how many active users did they have in thier ecosystem?

When Apple Music started out how many active users in thier ecosystem'??

One could argue that 15 million active subscribers for apple, given thier huge user base is a massive fail.

Spotify had to work thier way to 30m subscribers from nothing.

Apple has 1 BILLION active devices...they gave all its users free access to Apple Music for 3 months, and even after all that, just 15 million subscribed.... Maybe time to reflect that something is wrong with the service.

Apple Music should have blown away Spotify in the first year had they got it right.
Rating: 12 Votes
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Mlrollin91
41 months ago
As others above have stated. Spotify has been around so much longer than Apple Music, therefore its impressive that Apple Music has taken off so quickly. Im sure Spotify didn't have 15M paying subscribers a year after its launch.
Rating: 8 Votes

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