Is Spotify as dominant as we think? (Photo by Qimono, modified by DMN)
Spotify currently has more than 50 million paying subscribers in the U.S., according to recent data reviewed by Digital Music News, but Apple Music is larger in its most lucrative membership category.
In every discussion of the music industry, Spotify seems to be seen as the dominant giant in the streaming music space, but how dominant is it compared to rivals like Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music, especially in the US?
According to some royalty data shared by major publishers and verified by Digital Music News, the game appears to be more competitive than we previously thought.
Data shows (specifically from February of this year) that Spotify has more paid subscribers overall than Apple Music when weighted to take into account all plan packages (individual, family, student, etc.) However, when it comes to the most valuable package, the individual subscriber plan, Apple Music beats Spotify in the US.
Given the bitter battle currently brewing between Spotify and the music publishing industry, this revelation could have significant implications. Let's break down the numbers.
Spotify has roughly 50 million total subscribers in the U.S., far more than Apple Music's roughly 34 million. While that seems like a big lead, Spotify is being overtaken by Apple in the lucrative “individual subscriber” category.
In this key category, Spotify's subscriber numbers are not that high, at 20.2 million compared to Apple Music's 20.8 million.
Of the Apple Music total, 19.1 million are traditional individual subscriptions and about 1.73 million are packaged Apple One subscriptions that include Apple Music, Apple TV, Apple Arcade, and iCloud at a discount.
Spotify's roughly 50 million total is backed by Family, Duo and Student plans which have certain multipliers or discounts applied for royalty calculation purposes (for example, the Family plan has a 1.75x multiplier applied by certain publishers, while the Student plan has a 0.5x multiplier).
More recently, National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) President David Israelite pointed to Spotify’s “approximately 50 million subscribers,” but data provided to DMN (with the appropriate multiplier) puts Spotify’s total subscriber count at just over 50 million.
Importantly, the royalty multiplier shared with DMN is a different methodology than Spotify applied. According to Spotify's financial disclosures, for Individual and Student plans, a subscriber is naturally counted as “1.” For Family and Duo plans, the number is determined by the actual number of family members or friends who join the account (for example, if only two additional family members join a plan that can accommodate up to six people, the total number of subscribers reported by Spotify will be three).
So, what does this mean for Spotify's market share?
This is a crucial question in the context of a heated legal battle between Spotify and the music publishing industry. In its recent lawsuit against Spotify, MLC estimated total damages from Spotify's bundled music plans and associated royalty discounts at approximately $150 million per year, although this figure may represent a more controlling position in market share.
Last year, NMPA tallied Spotify's U.S. subscriber base at 44.4 million, compared with Apple Music's 32.6 million. Based on those figures, Spotify is estimated to have roughly 38% of the market share of competing DSPs in the U.S., at least with the competing platforms introduced at the member meeting.
Please note that we are still collecting more detailed data on subscriber numbers for other streaming platforms, such as Amazon Music, for 2024. Stay tuned for the latest market share estimates.
Spotify has 239 million paying subscribers worldwide, according to the company's most recent quarterly earnings report.
This isn't the first time Apple Music has seriously challenged Spotify in the US.
In 2018, Digital Music News first reported that Apple Music had surpassed Spotify in total subscribers in the U.S. This followed an earlier report from The Wall Street Journal noting that Apple Music's subscriber numbers were growing at a faster rate. Since then, the two platforms have been in fierce competition, with Spotify in an antitrust battle with Apple in the U.S. and Europe.
Apple doesn't release music-specific subscriber data, and Spotify doesn't release U.S.-specific (or country-specific) subscriber information, and neither company agreed to share their U.S.-specific subscriber data for this article.