Spotify now has 100 million paid subscribers around the world as of the first quarter of 2019 (via The Verge). The company announced the major milestone today, confirming that Spotify Premium subscribers grew 32 percent year-over-year. In total, there are 217 million monthly active users on Spotify (including the ad-supported tier).
Spotify said that there were numerous reasons behind the growth in Q1 2019, namely including its Spotify Premium + Hulu bundle offered in the United States. Spotify launched this new bundle in March, offering a free subscription to Hulu with Limited Commercials at no extra cost for all U.S. Spotify subscribers.
In the United Kingdom and France, Spotify offers all premium Family Plan subscribers a free Google Home Mini smart speaker. This offer is still ongoing and ends on May 14, 2019. According to Spotify, "voice speakers are a critical area of growth, particularly for music and podcasts." The company said that it plans to continue to pursue opportunities to expand its presence in this area.
Spotify's update comes nearly six months after the company reported that it had reached 87 million paid subscribers and 191 million monthly active users. While Spotify is far ahead of Apple Music's over 50 million paid subscriber count, The Wall Street Journal earlier this month reported that Apple Music has surpassed Spotify's paid subscriber count in the United States.
Top Rated Comments
Spotify’s Hulu offer shows us how Apple might proceed with AppleTV+. My guess is that AppleMusic and AppleTV will be offered as a bundle.
People using Apple Music over Spotify are really, truly missing out on some great new music discovery. Nothing Apple has touches their “Discover Weekly” and “Release Radar” playlists. Their algorithms are off the chain and the user experience is just so much better.
[doublepost=1556562906][/doublepost]Their act together?
The Apple Music product you see now is the final product. Lazy, unintuitive, clunky and unpleasant to use.
To me, Apple Music is one of the largest failures. But it’s proved Apple’s theory — that they can sell anything now. They have more paid users in the US (only) as compared to Spotify, but their app is trash. I don’t think Apple cares about being the “best” in anything anymore - they have enough of a base now to sell sell sell.