61% of Australians now stream music with over 12.7 million using music streaming services in an average 4 weeks – an increase of over 3.7 million from only 3 years ago according to a report from Australian market research company, Roy Morgan. Spotify is the clear market leader used by 8 million Australians and has more than doubled its Australian user-base since 2017, up by 4.4 million (+122%). The growth for Spotify is faster than the overall market growth and it has been attracting existing music streamers from rival services.
The nearest rival to Spotify is YouTube Music (including Google Play Music) now used by 5.5 million Australians (26%). In early 2020 Google Play Music had just over 1 million Australian users with around half already using YouTube Music. Google has recently announced that it will close Google Play Music (GPM) this year and has introduced a tool to enable GPM users to migrate their content to YouTube Music.
Although behind the two market leaders, Apple Music and SoundCloud are each used by substantial numbers of Australians as the third and fourth most popular services in the music streaming market.
These figures do not include all live radio streams and podcasts that Australians are able to listen to via these services. A declining minority of 8.1 million Australians (39%) don’t currently use any music streaming services, a drop of 2.7 million from three years ago.
According to Michele Levine, CEO, Roy Morgan, “Those listening to music online tend to be younger and more open to new ideas than the average Australian, and ready to spend their money to seek out new experiences whether traveling, sampling different cuisines are trying the latest tech products.”
He continued, “At present the Australian music streaming market is dominated by Spotify with 8 million users and YouTube Music (including the soon to be closed Google Play Music) with 5.5 million users. However, competition in music streaming is set to increase with global tech giants Apple and Amazon both significant players. Apple Music launched in 2015 replacing the music service iTunes, while Amazon Prime Music launched in Australia less than two years ago in late 2018.”
