Global online music streaming subscriptions grew 32% year-on-year reaching 358 million subscriptions in calendar year 2019, according to the latest findings from Counterpoint Research.
The research group says this is driven by the availability of exclusive content like podcasts, originals which attracted people towards the platform and eventually turned them as subscribers. Also, promotional activities like price cuts in subscriptions in emerging markets, bundled offers from telcos added to the growth.
Counterpoint Research expects that online music streaming subscriptions to grow more than 25% year-on-year to exceed 450 million subscriptions by the end of 2020.
Spotify topped calendar year 2019 grabbing a 31% share of the total revenue and a 35% share of the total paid subscriptions. The runner up, Apple Music, follows with a 24% share of total revenues in the industry and a 19% share of the total paid subscriptions. Due to Apple’s high focus on its services segment which includes Apple Music, its subscription base grew 36% year-over-year in 2019, according to Counterpoint Research. Amazon Music subscriptions reached a 15% share in 2019 compared to 10% in 2018.
“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,” says research analyst Abhilash Kumar. “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.”
