Spotify dominates streaming market but others catch up

Livia Gamper

24.1.2022

Translation: machine translated

Spotify is the largest streaming provider in the world. That's what a study shows. However, the market as a whole can also report great growth and other providers are catching up.

Spotify was the world's largest music provider in the second quarter of 2021 with a share of 31 percent. Apple Music was a fairly distant second with 15 percent, with Amazon Music and Tencent Music close behind in third with 13 percent each. That's according to a report from Midia Research, a research and analysis agency specializing in media and entertainment.

Midia says there were 523.9 million music streaming subscribers at the time of the survey. You can see the breakdown of shares in the chart below.

While the report is from the second quarter of last year - that is, April, May and June 2021 - Midia justifies the use of this slightly older data by the length of time it takes to analyze the market.

The other providers are catching up

Spotify is far and away in the lead, but the research firm noted that Spotify's market share has dropped from 33 percent to 31 percent compared to the same quarter last year. Meanwhile, YouTube Music - Google's one-time laggard - has grown by more than 50 percent. According to Midia, YouTube Music is finding particular favor with Generation Z.

Amazon also outpaced Spotify in terms of growth. The U.S. company recorded 25 percent compared to 20 percent from the previous year. By contrast, the hi-fi provider Tidal, which is popular in this country, does not even appear among the eight most popular providers worldwide.

Is Spotify making losses because of lossless audio streaming?

Since the figures are somewhat older, they will not reflect the developments of the new lossless audio streaming offering. That's because Apple Music as well as Amazon have come out ahead there - and without charging additional fees. This might have led some to switch providers. Because Spotify can't serve the HiFi market (yet). The announcement that Spotify cannot keep the promise of the announced Spotify HiFi offer angered many users.

Strong overall global growth in music streaming

Further, Midia notes that the overall, global music streaming market grew 26.4 percent. Among these, the largest subscriber growth came from emerging markets. China's Tencent Music Entertainment (TME) and NetEase Cloud Music added a combined 35.7 million new subscribers in one year. In the process, they accounted for a combined 18 percent of the global market share. This is despite the fact that they are only available in China.

Russian provider Yandex was the other big winner, doubling its subscriber base and reaching two percent of global market share.

Spotify may still be the biggest provider for a while, but who knows what the competition will bring.

Livia Gamper

Editor

livia.gamper@digitecgalaxus.ch

Testing devices and gadgets is my thing. Some experiments lead to interesting insights, others to demolished phones. I’m hooked on series and can’t imagine life without Netflix. In summer, you’ll find me soaking up the sun by the lake or at a music festival.