Music subscribers grew by 16% in the first half of 2018 to reach 229.5 million, up from 198.6 million at the end of 2017 according to media and technology analysts, MIDiA Research. Year-on-year the global subscriber base increased by 38%, adding 62.8 million subscribers compared to 60.8 million net new subscribers added between H1 2016 and H1 2017.
Continued growth is expected in the relatively undeveloped markets of Japan, Germany, Brazil, Mexico and Russia with telco bundles likely to be the driver in the latter three countries.
Key global trends
Spotify
Spotify once again maintained global market share of 36%, the same as in Q4 2017, with 83 million subscribers. Spotify has either gained or maintained market share every six months since Q4 2016. Spotify added more subscribers than any other service in H1 2018 – 11.9 million, which was 39% of all net new subscribers worldwide.
Apple Music
Apple grew its market share from 17% to 19%, a 3% year-on-year increase with 43.5 million subscribers. Apple Music added the second highest number of subscribers – 9.2 million, with the US being the key growth market.
Amazon
Amazon Prime Music and Amazon Music Unlimited added just under half a percent of market share reaching 12%. Amazon experienced the most growth within its Unlimited offering adding 3.3 million subscribers to reach 9.5 million in Q2 2018. In total Amazon had 27.9 million subscribers at the end of the period.
Others
There were mixed fortunes among the rest of the pack. In Japan, Line Music experienced solid quarterly growth to reach one million subscribers, while in South Korea MelOn had a dip in Q1 but recovered in Q2 to finish slightly above its Q4 2017 figure. Elsewhere, Pandora added 500,000 subscribers, while Google performed strongly on a global basis
