Spotify has double Apple Music’s subscribers with a 31% market share compared to Apple Music’s 15%, according to media and technology analysts, MIDiA Research in their Music market subscriber shares 2021 report. The global base of music subscribers continues to grow strongly with 523.9 million music subscribers at the end of Q2 2021, which was up by 109.5 million (26.4%) from one year earlier.
Key findings from the report
Spotify has the highest market share – 31% down from 33% in Q2 2020 and 34% in Q2 2019. With Apple Music being a distant second with 15% market share, and Spotify adding more subscribers in the 12 months leading up to Q2 2021 there is no risk of Spotify losing its leading position anytime soon.
Amazon Music once again out-performed Spotify in terms of growth (25% compared to 20%), but the standout success story among Western streamers was YouTube Music, for the second successive year. Google was once the laggard of the space, but the launch of YouTube Music has transformed its fortunes, growing by more than 50% in the 12 months leading up to Q2 2021. YouTube Music was the only Western streamer to increase global market share during this period. YouTube Music particularly resonates among Gen Z and younger Millennials, which should have alarm bells ringing for Spotify, as their core base of Millennial subscribers from the 2010s in the West are now beginning to age.
But the biggest subscriber growth came from emerging markets. Between them, Tencent Music Entertainment (TME) and NetEase Cloud Music added 35.7 million subscribers in the 12 months leading up to Q2 2021. Together, they accounted for 18% of global market shares, despite being available only in China. Yandex, in Russia, was the other big gainer, doubling its subscriber base to reach 2% of global market share. Combined, Yandex, TME and NetEase account for 20% of subscriber market share, but they drive 37% of all subscriber growth in the 12 months leading up to Q2 2021.
The full Music market subscriber shares 2021 report is available to MIDiA subscribers or for purchase here.
