Spotify continues to dominate the global music streaming market, which has more than half a billion paid users on a monthly basis.
The streaming giant Spotify started operating in 2006 and for the first time took the lead from Apple Music for the streaming service with the most listeners in 2019.
According to a new report by MIDiA Research, an entertainment research company, 523.9 million people were enrolled in a music streaming service worldwide in the second quarter of 2021. This is an increase of 109.5 million subscribers (26.4% ) compared to the previous year.
Although Spotify remains the streaming service with the most subscribers, accounting for 31% of the market, its dominance is slowly declining - it held 33% of the market in 2020 and 34% in 2019. Spotify gained more subscribers in the second quarter of 2021 by its competitors, but while Spotify grew by 20%, Amazon Music recorded a growth of 25%.
Over the past two years, Spotify has given rise to names like former US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama hosting a podcast that is estimated to have 40 million viewers a month, including Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle. , Duchess of Sussex, signed a cooperation agreement with the streaming giant in 2021, which is said to amount to 25 million dollars.
Meanwhile, Google's YouTube Music grew by more than 50% in the second quarter of 2021, becoming the only streaming service in the western world to increase its overall market share. Chinese gaming giant Tencent, which manages Tencent Music, has the same market share as Amazon Music, at 13%.
music streaming market share Q2 2021
The growth of Amazon Music and Apple Music market share can continue, because this report only covers the period up to the second quarter of 2021 and does not show the impact of the lossless audio format that will come to both Amazon as well as Apple in May.
Almost a year ago, Spotify announced plans to launch a high-quality audio subscription called Spotify Hi-Fi, which would give subscribers music in "CD quality, lossless audio format", but has not Update on the possible release date of this feature.
And then there is Tidal, which has always been aimed at consumers looking for a higher quality experience. Although Tidal's lossless audio subscription costs $ 9.99 a month - the same cost as Apple Music and just $ 2 a month more than Amazon Music - Tidal holds less than 2% of global market share, according to with the MIDiA report.
Founded by JAY-Z and later acquired by Block (formerly Square) by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, Tidal is self-promoting as a service that helps artists share their music "exactly as the artist wants". that is, with extremely good sound quality.
Based on MIDiA's report that there were 523.9 million total subscribers to streaming services in the second quarter of 2021, Spotify is estimated to have just over 162.4 million paid subscribers (although the official number announced by the company for in the second quarter (165 million) and Apple Music had 78.6 million subscribers.
Amazon Music and Tencent Music, which is available exclusively in China, have just over 68.1 million subscribers each, and YouTube Music is in fifth place with an 8% market share of 41.9 million subscribers. .
Although Spotify's strong lead is unlikely to be threatened anytime soon, MIDiA notes that its growth has outpaced that of Amazon and YouTube Music, while growth in emerging markets is also said to have been strong, with Yandex, Tencent and NetEast to record total growth of 37 percentage points.
