“Apple is turning up the volume on Apple Music, the streaming subscription that comes loaded on its devices, including the new HomePod smart speaker. But that could mute the potential of Spotify, the independent music subscription service that aims to go public this year,” Steven Zeitchik reports for The Washington Post. “‘We are at an inflection point in digital music,’ said Lloyd Greif, who runs Greif & Co., a Los Angeles-based investment company specialized in entertainment and media. ‘If Spotify doesn’t make a move, Apple could be dominating within 12 months. Apple is coming for them and they can’t stand still.'”
“As of late 2017, Spotify had 18.2 million subscribers in the U.S. compared to Apple Music’s 15 million, according to Billboard. Both charge $9.99 monthly for their primary service,” Zeitchik reports. “Apple is gaining on Spotify. According to a Wall Street Journal story, Apple currently has a 5 percent monthly growth rate in paid U.S. subscribers compared to 2 percent for its chief competitor. If that holds, Apple will surpass the Swedish firm by summer — especially salient given Spotify’s plans for a U.S. IPO in the coming months.”
“Apple Music works far more easily on HomePod, which debuted Friday, than other music streamers. That both incentivizes people to buy HomePod and, maybe more importantly, gives consumers who have HomePod reason to sign up for the service,” Zeitchik reports. “Unlike video, where streaming giants such as Netflix and Amazon can boast very different content, music offerings are largely similar. Apple has an extremely large library of about 45 million songs, but Spotify still has 30 million songs, sufficient for most users.”
MacDailyNews Take: Spotify. For those who settle for “sufficient.”
You’d have to be stupid to subscribe to Spotify when it has 33% fewer tracks than Apple Music for the same price. Apple Music boasts a catalog of 45 million songs; Spotify has a mere subset of just 30 million. Don’t be stupid. If you’re still subscribing to Spotify, it’s past time for you to cancel it and upgrade to Apple Music. (See also: How to move your Spotify playlists to Apple Music.) – MacDailyNews, February 6, 2017
“With the number of streaming subscribers in the U.S. currently estimated at lower than 50 million, many new customers are still up for grabs. Data from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners show that comparatively few Americans now pay for streaming services — no more than 13 percent of iPhone users subscribe to any single service,” Zeitchik reports. ““We’re in the late innings of early adoption,” said NYU’s Miller. ‘There’s a lot of room for these companies to grow — or fail.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple was always going to beat the likes of Spotify, Pandora, etc.
Simple mathematics makes it blatantly obvious what’s going to happen to Pandora. — MacDailyNews, September 24, 2013
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Apple Music has rendered Spotify’s future decidedly dimmer.
The best customers are those who pay. As demonstrated by years of data, form disparate sources, those paying customers are also significantly more likely to be iPhone owners than those who’ve settled for poor iPhone facsimiles. A healthy portion of these coveted customers will leave for Apple’s comprehensive offering which offers better family rates, more music, likely exclusives, and seamless integration across all Apple devices. It’ll even work with crappy Windows PCs and Android phones eventually (not that those are likely to be Spotify’s paying customers, but whatever, some of them will join Apple Music and maybe even graduate to Apple devices because of it).
Spotify could quickly be left with an unprofitable system, with a dwindling music library because they cannot afford to pay music royalties. — MacDailyNews, June 9, 2015
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Spotify is a poor man’s Apple Music. The demographics in this race, as ever, greatly favor Apple in the long run. — MacDailyNews, January 3, 2018
SEE ALSO:
Apple Music was always going to win – February 6, 2018
Apple Music on track to overtake Spotify, become No. 1 streaming service in U.S. this summer – February 4, 2018
Apple Music and Spotify now account for the majority of music consumption in the UK – January 3, 2018
Spotify files for its IPO – January 3, 2018
Spotify hit with $1.6 billion lawsuit from music publisher – January 2, 2018
Watch out Spotify and Apple Music, here comes Amazon – December 18, 2017
Spotify leads call for investigation into ‘troubling’ Apple and Google app store practices – May 5, 2017
Apple Music passes Pandora and Spotify in mobile usage – March 29, 2017
Spotify hits 50 million paid subscribers – March 3, 2017
Apple Music surpasses 20 million paid members 17 months after launch – December 6, 2016
Oh ok, Spotify listeners are upgrading to Apple Music – July 19, 2015
Spotify CEO claims to be ‘ok’ with Apple Music – June 9, 2015
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz,” “Arline M.” and “Whit D.” for the heads up.]
I have always considered Apple Music to be an expensive Spotify knock-off.
Are they not the same price?
Same price but Apple Music has way more tunes! That’s why they are gaining.
I have yet to have an issue with finding a song on spotify. Those numbers are greatly exaggerated because that’s the way it is with Apple fanboys. If Apple didn’t have so many compatibility issues with their products I would be more inclined to purchase one. I have played the iphone game and I’m glad to be an android man.
Apple Music and Spotify are the same price. Spotify has a crappy free version yes, but to get useful features like offline listening Spotify costs exactly the same as Apple Music.
But … Apple has ramped up the game with HomePod.
Spotify delivers … or else it’s Palm all over again.
I’ll stick with SiriusXM. All the music channels I care to have, plus major league sports, cable news channels, political talk, ESPN.
How is SiriusXM same as Spotify or Apple Music??? I think the comparison is, well, apples and oranges.
If I’m not mistaken, Sirius is a broadcasting service, with a bunch of live music channels that stream pre-programmed music.
Both Spotify and Apple Music give you the ability to play any album (or track) you want, whenever you want it. Apple’s catalogue is larger, but both essentially propose to replace your downloaded music. You pick albums (or songs) and either download them (so that you can play without the internet connection), or stream live from the internet.
I hope AppleMusic doesn’t put Spotify out of business. It’s probably not likely. What’s somewhat amusing is how almost everyone who reviews the HomePod is rather unhappy the HomePod doesn’t support Spotify or any other streaming music service. I fully understand that way of thinking but I suppose that walled garden is Apple’s way of saying “my way or the highway.” I would think if the HomePod supported more streaming music services, Apple would sell more HomePods and it’s basically hardware Apple wants to sell to consumers.
I’m sure Wall Street would like to see AppleMusic put Spotify out of business as the greedy big investors would be dancing in the streets if Amazon could destroy Spotify by stealing all of their subscribers. Such a sad commentary for greedy investors always wanting some other business to fail for their own benefits. All I’m asking is for Apple to gain some sort of parity with Spotify and be profitable. Spotify doesn’t have to be destroyed by Apple as far as I’m concerned.
After using both services I’ve decided to stick with Spotify. Playlist sharing is what made the main difference. The download speed with Spotify is a bit quicker than Apple.
Wait… I am an Apple Music subscriber and I share playlists with my friends too….
some people like Kendrick have names with a silent ken and r.
misleading people about playlist sharing is just what Spotify shills do… sad.
“…comparatively few Americans now pay for streaming services..”
Damn right and we are going to keep it that way.
What would Apple’s motivation be to improve Apple Music were there no Spotify. Hell would there even have been a subscription service were it not for Spotify.
MDN’s take on the need to destroy a competitor is wrong. Competition is what made Apple great from it’s birth. First IBM, then M$.
As a $15/month Family Plan Spotifier, I very much hope the company sees what’s coming and ups it’s game.
Job #1 for them is to let me host my files on their servers so I can always here the music I own, whether there’s streaming rights or not.
Job #2 is beef up the desktop client with a 10-20 band graphic equalizer.
If Apple’s gains the ability to dominate through bundling – exactly the way M$ led the browser wars with IE on Windows, then these are certainly sad times.
Competition is what we need. Not monopolies.
Apple Daily News has many agendas. Advocating for a competive market or user friendly interoperability or sticking to Mac news are not among them. Another day, another slew of ads disguised as articles for Apple’s latest media rental gadget.
Apple Music is fine. Airplay is subpar compared to Spotify Connect!
It’s much more convenient to stream directly from Spotify than having to stream from another device(which you then dan’t move or use for something else).
Being able to pick up the nearest iOS device and using it as a Spotify remote is phenomenal.
If AirPlay2 could do something similar – I’d switch in a heartbeat 🙂
typical of Spotify shills to even make up new words.
I mean, what the EFF is “dan’t”. I mean, I know what it is, but I can’t even believe the stupidity of people trying to pretend they’re smart, but then they can with the “dan’t” BS>
It’s really very sad. Spotify sad.
Dude, how old are you, ten? You can have a difference of opinion, but acting like a douche isn’t helping your cause.
Won’t ever rent music.
You should try it. It is much cheaper than owning, and you get it immediately, all of it, right away, rather than building your library over the years (and decades), only to have to “buy the White Album again” (the euphemism of having to buy one’s music collection in the new audio format of the day).
If you are young (in your 20s), then paying for Apple music for the rest of your life is worth it if your music collection will, over the remaining 6 – 7 decades of your life, amount to about 600 – 700 or more albums (or their equivalents). If you don’t expect to ever accummulate this many, then we need to look into some additional factors that may play a role, in order to determine exactly how many albums would you need to hope to have, in order to your music collection to be cheaper than Apple Music subscription.
Over the past 70 years, there have been about four major mainstream music distribution formats (more, if we include 8-track, digital audio cassette and SACD and DVD-audio): vinyl records (LP, EP, single), compact cassette, CD and digital download. These four were the most significant formats in which the record labels published music. If you were born before the 80s, your first music collection was likely on vinyl. While audio cassette was a popular format for purchasing music, it was never considered a successor to vinyl; more of an alternative format. However, CD has definitely widely been accepted as a successor, and a significant improvement, to vinyl. Anyone who has, by the end of 80s, accumulated a music collection in vinyl, ended up buying again at least some (if not most) of the most valuable albums from that collection in a CD format (hence the “buying the White Album all over again”). When Apple launched iTunes Music Store, the buying shifted towards digital, although there was no need for anyone to “buy the White Album again”, as they could simply rip the CD and get the new format at no additional cost.
So, over the past seven decades, we have had at least one major format change, which necessitated a significant additional investment into new gear, as well as re-purchasing of that music collection in that new format. Now, obviously, none of the new emerging formats ever prevented owners from enjoying their albums in older formats. There are still people who own their turntables, and apparently, vinyl is experiencing a bit of a renaissance these days, with some of the most popular contemporary releases coming out in analogue vinyl as well. Still, vast majority of people whose collection used to be on vinyl have re-acquired most (if not all) of it in some digital format, whether physical (CD) or virtual (paid-for download, or subscription-based), so that they can take it with them on their digital devices.
So, if we take into account the likelihood that technology may change again, requiring another investment in playback devices, as well as library re-acquisition, the total lifetime monetary outlay for the enjoyment of your music goes further up, for fewer albums/tracks than if you simply pay subscription.
I think about the only reason why one would be hesitant with respect to a lifetime of renting music, is if one has doubts that the company from which one is renting the music would eventually go out of business, and take with it the lifetime of subscriptions. Obviously, it is extremely unlikely that the entire concept of renting music would entirely disappear, preventing one from simply signing up with another service provider and quickly rebuilding the collection.
I have, over my lifetime, acquired some 300+ CDs. I stopped buying them and started paying Apple Music. Virtually all of those CDs I can find on Apple Music, so I don’t bother ripping on my Mac and uploading on my iPhone; I just find each album I want on Apple Music and, if I know I won’t have internet access on my phone, I download the tracks.
As someone who has, for over 35 years, been purchasing music, I find Apple Music far cheaper and better solution. Virtually ALL of the music published anywhere in the world can be found there. Right away. I can build a collection of 1,200 albums in a matter of minutes (or hours). For the same price of $10 per month.
Oh, and by the way, there are still a few dozen vinyl albums, sitting in the basement of my aunt’s home, from my youth. At this point, they are simply historic artifacts, and I doubt anyone (I, or my heirs) would ever expect them to be put on a turntable and played back (all are available on Apple Music anyway).