What you need to know
- Apple Music is the second most popular music streaming service in the world.
- The service grew 36% year over year in 2019.
- The music streaming industry grew to a total of 358 million subscribers last year.
Apple Music has quickly grown into one of the most popular music streaming services in the world. In a new report from Counterpoint Research, it is now the second most popular music streaming service, placing only behind Spotify.
The music streaming market grew 32% year over year in 2019, amassing a total of 358 million subscribers. According to the firm, the growth is attributed to a growing interest in podcasts, price competition in growing markets, and promotional bundling from carriers.
Apple Music grabbed 24% of the total revenue in the industry and 19% of the total paid subscriptions. The company has been highly focused on growing its services business and, due to that push it grew its subscribers by 36% year over year.
Research Analyst Abhilash Kumar says that while Spotify has managed to maintain its top spot with promotions and exclusive content, Apple is quickly gaining on the service with personalized playlists and new app features.
"Spotify maintained its top spot with the help of promotional activities like free Spotify Premium for three months, price cuts, customized campaigns like Spotify and a focus on exclusive content. Tech giants like Amazon, Apple, Google have started focusing on music streaming and have sufficient cash at their disposal to give stiff competition to Spotify. Apple Music is making improvements in its app like the introduction of night mode, curated playlists to target a group, etc. Similarly, Amazon Music has been trying lossless music and is creating its own niche where it competes with Tidal."
Despite the pandemic, the firm still expects the music streaming industry to grow by at least another 25% year over year in 2020 and reach a total of at least 350 million subscribers.
