“The worlds most famous and popular language is music” – Psy
As of this week, Apple Music has surpassed Spotify’s paid subscriber count in the United States, making it the number one streaming service in the country. According to Digital Music News, Apple music, with a growth rate of 5% and over 20 million U.S. subscribers, is growing faster than Spotify. However, Spotify still holds the reign worldwide with over 70 million subscribers compared to Apples 45 million.
This is a big win for Apple, but it will be hard to get a global win on Spotify. The majority of iPhone users reside in the United States, so it is easier for them to use Apple Music since it is built into iOS. That being said, Spotify has an advantage on Apple due to it’s free streaming feature. Although they have to listen to ads, Spotify has 170 million users with the inclusion of those who stream for free.
(Source: Gear Patrol)
Apple does have an advantage over Spotify in a couple areas. For starters, Apple Music has 10 million more songs than Spotify. Also, being that Apple is such a giant company, it is easier for them to snatch exclusive albums. For example, Dr Dre’s highly anticipated album, Compton, was only available to be streamed on Apple Music upon release. As Apple releases more exclusive content, it will bring more Spotify users over. Also, with Apple’s upcoming video streaming service, there is rumored to be a package that combines both the music and video services, another source of new users.
To better compare the two, rap star Drake released an album on both streaming services. Spotify advertised the album like crazy, placing the rapper into virtually all their playlists. Unfortunately, their efforts did not pay off as Apple Music users streamed his album, Scorpion, 170 million times to Spotify’s 130 million in the first 24 hours of release. So, although Spotify has more subscribers, they seem to be less engaged with the content.
AAPL up past week, beating the DOW by 1%.
AAPL & DOW (Source: Yahoo Finance)