Apple Inc’s paid subscribers in the United States, for its music service, have surpassed the subscribers held by the rival Spotify Technology SA, as reported Reuters last week, citing a source familiar with the matter.
As of end of Feb 2019, music service of the Apple was enjoying 28 million paid subscribers while that of Spotify were 26 million, said the source.
Although monthly subscription charges of both the companies is $9.99 but still, number of U.S. listeners stick to Spotify are more than that of Apple’s, largely because of a less-featured, ad-supported free tier service offered by the Spotify. Also, outside the United States, Spotify is believed to be having a subscriber base that is stronger than Apple, say analysts.
Neither Apple nor Spotify are in the practice of disclosing data comprising number of listeners in the United States and also both have declined to comment on the matter, but earlier, according to a Wall Street Journal report, it surfaced that Apple has surpassed Spotify for holding more number of subscribers.
Part of a wider strategy of Apple, streaming service is a major lucrative segment making money off services and subscriptions for the company at the time when its core business of iPhone is facing slower global sales. Broadening its plan off iPhone sales, Apple in the last month also announced a television, news and gaming subscriptions as well as launched a credit card in collaboration with Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
According to its most recent earnings report in February, there were 207 million monthly active users and 96 million premium subscribers held by Spotify, which suggest that the company still has more number of paid users than Apple Music. Number of Spotify’s premium subscribers in the North American region, excluding Mexico, was 28.8 million while number of its monthly active listeners was 62.1 million, said the company in its report.
Apple, who does not disclose its subscriber’s data regularly, officially said in May 2018 that number of subscriber attached to its music service is 50 million.
