Spotify enjoys strong growth, with the number of paid subscribers to this streaming music service up 29% year over year. At last report, rival Apple Music wasn’t growing so strongly.
Spotify staying way ahead of Apple Music
Spotify reported today that paid premium subscribers hit 124 million at the end of 2019. That’s up from 96 million at the end of the previous year, and a 10% increase over the previous quarter.
Photo: Spotify
Its chief competitor, Apple Music, had 60 million paid subscribers in June, the last time Apple executives revealed this figure. At the time, this service was growing at 20% annually. If that trend continued, then Apple Music currently has about 70 million subscribers.
Spotify is based in Europe, while Apple’s home country is, of course, the US. Apple pointed out that, as of last spring, more Americans pay to listen to Apple Music than its rival.
Paid subscribers aren’t the Swedish company’s only listeners. It also has 153 million users who get the service for free in exchange for listening to ads. Apple doesn’t offer an equivalent, possibly because this group contributed just 12% of Spotify’s revenue last quarter.
The third horse in this race, Amazon Music, grew strongly last year to reach 55 million subscribers. But this figure includes both paid and ad-supported customers.
Source: Spotify
