Far from being the big threat to Spotify that many expected, Apple Music might actually have helped its music streaming rival.
As the biggest name in music subscription services, Spotify has almost hit 100 million users across 59 countries since it was founded in Stockholm ten years ago.
Many expected Apple to provide the biggest threat to Spotify’s dominance by far, but it turns out that the service has grown even faster since Apple Music hit the market in June of last year.
“It’s great that Apple is in the game,” Spotify VP Jonathan Forster told Reuters. “They are definitely raising the profile of streaming. It is hard to build an industry on your own.”
“Since Apple Music started we’ve been growing quicker and adding more users than before,” he added.
This doesn’t seem to have been a snarky, throwaway comment either. “It would be terrible if we were just taking each other’s users or to learn there was just a ceiling of 100 million users,” Forster explained.
Even the idea of a 100 million user ceiling must seem quite far off for Apple, with only 11 million Apple Music users confirmed as of February.
Related: Spotify vs Apple Music
Of course, that 100 million user figure from Spotify warrants a little breaking down. Only 30 million of those are on the paid tier, which is the direct equivalent to Apple’s service. So viewed from another angle, Apple has built up a third of Spotify’s paying user base in a tenth of the time.
Apple has the established platform in place to expect better, though. Indeed, reports suggest that Apple Music’s disappointing reception has prompted a drastic redesign, which could launch at WWDC this June.
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Do you think Apple Music will ever pose a serious threat to Spotify? Let us know in the comments.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
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We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
