“According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple Music is about to overtake Spotify as the most popular streaming music service in the United States,” Adam Clark Estes writes for Gizmodo. “Apple Music is adding new US subscribers at a monthly growth rate of 5 percent, while Spotify trails at 2 percent. It doesn’t take much math to realize that Apple poses a real threat to Spotify at something that Spotify essentially invented ten years ago.”
“As many suspected when it launched three years ago, Apple Music was bound to succeed simply because Apple is big enough and rich enough to will it so,” Estes writes. “Apple unveiled Apple Music in 2015 — which was really just a rebranded version of Beats Music, part of Apple’s $3 billion acquisition of Beats. It was clear how the new service would succeed. Because Apple could preload the service on iPhones, Watches, and Macs, the company could effectively tap into a new revenue stream without actually inventing anything.”
“If the Journal’s numbers are correct and the trends continue, Spotify might cease to be synonymous with streaming music,” Estes writes. “It looks like Apple will win again—not because the underdog can’t hack it but because money can buy success.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: 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.)
And, yes, 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 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
” in the United States”
It is a big world out there.
Really…I hadn’t noticed…
That’s ’cause Oklahoma is OK!
Oklahoma is suffering through Red State fiscal mismanagement. Lots of Okie Schools are running 4 day weeks and the teachers have to get second jobs at Wal-Mart. The whole thing was written up in the Economist.
Fiscal mismanagement?
Oklahoma is rated #7 fiscally.
That’s damn good — and something you only see in red states.
What state are you from?
https://www.mercatus.org/statefiscalrankings
That’s why teachers are leaving the state in droves due to low wages and 4 day classes.
Exactly
Didn’t Microsoft have some sort of streaming music thing…what happened to that that?
Amazon or Google will be buying Spotify shortly so Android can continue to copy and emulate.
The HomePod is out and the first thing the reviewers start crying about is how the HomePod doesn’t support Spotify. They obviously don’t feel that AppleMusic is going to kill Spotify. There are AppleMusic subscribers who would still like the HomePod to support Spotify because I suppose these people have already built Spotify playlists or something similar. I believe the general consensus feels Spotify is still the king and Apple is a distant second. No one is spouting how AppleMusic is going to destroy Spotify as they would say if it were an Amazon music service.
Due to Apple’s business strategy (?), it’s the only smart speaker that doesn’t support other music services directly and reviewers see that as a huge drawback. Amazon, Google, and Sonos all support multiple music services, so it’s obvious reviewers are going to say Apple’s HomePod is a loser on a comparative basis. Apple always has to live behind its own walled garden and certain people don’t like that.
The HomePod is relatively new and has plenty of room to grow. Initial impressions will be forgotten if the HomePod is being developed with more features over time. However, apparently, no one is happy about waiting for features to come to the HomePod when those features are already on Amazon and Google smart speaker devices.
Apple branched out with the iPod and iTunes, for instance. There is no reason why Apple could not release a HomePod software update to enable direct access to Spotify and other services…*if* Apple chooses to do so.
Please keep in mind that Apple has not announced any plans to do so, therefore buyers of the HomePod should not harbor expectations of that occurring. While Apple is known for expanding the functionality of its devices over time, you bought the device based on its existing functionality. Think of it like getting married – you marry the person that they are currently. If you marry someone with the objective of changing them into something else, then that is your fault.
If you don’t like the walled garden, then feel free to buy into the open cesspool.
I love you.
Apple branched out the iPod to save their own ass!
Imagine if MS disallowed iTunes….
Goose Gander
Y’all do know that HomePod does support Spotify, don’t ya? Pick it as your output device on AirPlay and you can play Spotify on a HomePod all day long.
Of course, CNBC is going out of their way by telling consumers they don’t need a $350 HomePod when there are much better and cheaper solutions available from Amazon and Google. That’s how it always is. CNBC wants to make sure consumers know that Apple’s products are more expensive than what they need. As though consumers can’t decide that for themselves.
Apple stuff is more expensive and used to be worth the extra $. These days it is looking more and more like a tax.
I still feel that I get good value out of my Apple products. But I plan and schedule my purchases carefully to get the best bang for the buck.
One person’s “tax” is another person’s fair value for a quality product. I know that some people have had significant issues with Apple products, but a still quite functional 11-year-old iMac and other very functional, but aging Apple devices has earned my loyalty.
The other major factor is Apple’s commitment to consumer privacy. Priceless. Try to buy that from Google or Amazon.
180° disagree. I do run into the other stuff out there and every time I do, I appreciate my Apple world better, even if there are deficiencies. The e-world is way too discombobulated outside of Apple’s walled garden.
To me, it is not about “Apple” the brand; I don’t worship them, rather (even with the problems) they are so far ahead in making things that work and for the end user to be productive.
Glad to see Apple win the majority of market share for something… Android users should definitely be able to
use itunes and Apple music, and the Homepod should
be able to use all services. let the consumer decide.
But for Christ sakes, dont give Android users another reason to hate apple, If sales of Iphones plateau, you need to go after the competitor, In Apples case, that would be a huge marked for new consumers, 90% wide open in many cases.
There are plenty of consumers to switch, Give them a reason to switch to Apple.
“The music companies loved the idea of subscriptions because they wanted to jack up the price every year. It was a money-driven thing, some finance person looked at AOL getting paid every month and said, ‘I’d sure like to get some of that recurring subscription revenue. Wouldn’t that be nice?’ It was certainly not a user-driven thing. Nobody ever went out and asked users, ‘Would you like to keep paying us every month for music that you thought you already bought?’ We told them, “Nobody wants to subscribe to music. They’ve bought it for 50 years. They bought 45s, they bought LPs, they bought 8-tracks, they bought cassettes, they bought CDs. Why would they want to start renting their music? People like to buy it and they like to do what they damn well please with it when they buy it”. The subscription model of buying music was bankrupt. I think you could’ve made available the Second Coming in a subscription model and it might not have been successful.”
Exerpt from: Steve Jobs: The Unauthorized Autobiography
“As many suspected when it launched three years ago, Apple Music was bound to succeed simply because Apple is big enough and rich enough to will it so,”
Apple succeeds because of its basic DNA is still there – making it easy for the end user and providing what the end users wants. With the above quote, when they (Apple) does begins to rely upon their size and wealth, they will become the next Microsoft!
Harder and harder to tell the difference between the two companies as the years go by.
Subscribed to Apple Music a week ago. I’m done torrenting now. Not worth the time and hassle as now I have all I need at the tips of my fingers.