Global music streaming subscribers up 32% in 2019

By Emmanuel Legrand

Global online music streaming subscriptions were up 32% year-on-year to 358 million accounts in 2019 and are expected to exceed 450 million by the end of 2020, up 25% over 2019, according to data from Counterpoint Research.

  Counterpoint estimated that Spotify grabbed a 31% share of the total revenue and a 35% share of the total paid subscriptions, followed by Apple Music, with a 24% share of total revenues and a 19% share of the total paid subscriptions. 

  Amazon Music subscriptions reached a 15% share in 2019 compared to 10% in 2018. Tencent stands at 11% of the total number of subscriptions and YouTubeMusic at 6%.



  Music Ally calculated that these figures would transcribe into 125.3 million subscribers for Spotify, 68 million for Apple Music, 53.7 million for Amazon Music, 39.4 million for Tencent Music, and 21.5 million for YouTube Music.  

Experience an uptick

  Elsewhere, Gaana dominated the Indian market, while Yandex Music was leading in Russia, Anghami in the Arab world, and Tencent Music Group in China market with the help of QQ Music, Kugou and Kuwo. The growth in 2020, coronavirus notwithstanding, will be driven by "the availability of exclusive content like podcasts, originals which attracted people towards the platform and eventually turned them as subscribers."

  Counterpoint research analyst Abhilash Kumar said "people are ready to pay for music streaming for a hassle-free experience," noting that "music streaming platforms are following a two-step approach to gain subscribers, first registering them to their platform as free users by means of excellent advertising campaigns and secondly pitching them with attractive offers to transfer them to become paying subscribers.”

  Kumar added that the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the OTT industry will be felt during the outbreak. “We expect the OTT sector will experience an uptick as people stay at home actively tracking the latest updates," he said. "During this outbreak, audio OTT consumption has switched from music streaming to the radio. People in highly affected areas are worried about the outbreak and are therefore continuously tuned to news on TV/radio for updates. The traction of news channels and podcasts saw an upswing while that for music streaming dropped.”