Spotify has double the number of Apple Music subscribers: 100 million paying, 217 million in total
Spotify announced that at the end of March, a figure that places the Swedish service well over its nearest rival, Apple Music, reached over 100 million paying users. In January, the Cupertino platform claimed that 50 million service subscribers were delivered with a remarkable result. The figures show an evident trend: streaming has become the most popular listening method with Spotify and Apple Music as the leaders of the growing multimedia industry. On the basis of the new figures, the Swedes in particular still maintain their market leadership with a continuing numerical advantage, despite higher growth from Apple Music (at least in the US). Spotify is the most numerous abonment users, as well as offering the opportunity to listen to music in a completely free way, unlike Apple Music. The growth in the last quarter also met with the best expectations reported in February and the company hopes to raise the "Premium" listening mode to 10 million new paying customers by year-end. Spotify has further stated that the streaming service will be used to 217 million users at least once a month and could be 222 million by 228 million by the end of the year. However, not all of this glitter is gold: in effect, in the first quarter of 2019, Spotify reported a EUR 142 m loss which is still much better than last year's (the loss was EUR 169 m). In the last three months, the turnover increased by 33 %, equivalent to 1,51 billion euros.