Apple Music overtakes Spotify

Reportedly, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is adding subscribers, at a rate of 5% per month versus Spotify’s 2 percent per month, as told by the Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal has obtained industry figures suggesting that Apple Music is growing faster than Spotify in the United States, adding 5 percent to its base every month versus “just” 2 percent for Spotify. WSJ cites music industry sources who have access to growth figures from both companies.

Apple Music is on course to overtake Spotify as the biggest music-streaming service in the United States this summer, say experts.

One reason for Apple Music’s rapid growth comes from the large amounts of devices and services Apple Music comes on.

It has nearly twice as many paid subscribers as Apple (70 million compared to 36 million) and a larger subscription base.

Apple had officially announced last June that Apple Music had reached 27 million subscribers. It would appear that Spotify has an insurmountable lead over Apple Music, but according to a report from The Wall Street Journal, the gap will disappear in a few months.

But globally, Apple Music still has a long way to go. One could assume that the release of the HomePod may trigger some iPhone users to switch from Spotify to Apple Music.

As a result, Apple Music has three to four times the number of free trial users as Spotify.

After forking out over $3 billion to buy Beats it appears that Apple’s investment in music is paying off. Now what Apple needs to do is grow its smart speaker portfolio with more affordable products that span a more diverse set of use cases. By comparison, the premium-only Apple Music had 30 million subscribers back in September.