Apple Music is the second most popular music streaming service in the world, but still lags far behind Spotify in its continued quest for streaming dominance, according to new market research.
According to a new report from Midia Research, Apple Music subscribers made up 15% of all streaming service listeners in the global market in the second quarter of 2021, putting it in a distant second place behind Spotify.
Spotify remained the dominant service, controlling more than double that amount with 31% of the global market share, although this was down slightly from 33% in 2020. Amazon Music and Tencent Music both took a share 13% market share, with YouTube Music increasing subscriptions globally by 8%.
Spotify remains the DSP with the highest market share (31%), but this was down from 33% in the second quarter of 2020 and 34% in the second quarter of 2019. Apple Music trailed far behind with 15% of market share, and Spotify adding more subscribers in the 12 months to Q2 2021 than any other single DSP, there’s no risk that Spotify will lose its leadership position anytime soon – but the erosion of its part is regular and persistent.
According to the report, Amazon Music once again outperformed Spotify in terms of growth (25% vs. 20%, respectively), but YouTube Music was the top performer for the second year in a row, growing more than 50% over the past few years. 12 months preceding the second quarter of 2021.
YouTube Music was the only service to increase its global market share during this period, thanks to its popularity among Gen Z and younger Millennials, according to the report.
Google was once the latecomer in the space, but the launch of YouTube Music transformed its fortunes, growing more than 50% in the 12 months to Q2 2021. YouTube Music was the only western DSP to increase its share global market during this period. the period. YouTube Music is particularly resonating with Gen Z and younger millennials, which should ring alarm bells for Spotify as their 2010s millennial subscriber base in the West is now starting to age.
Meanwhile, Apple continued to bolster its music streaming service in 2021 by adding support for spatial audio and lossless audio at no additional cost to subscribers. The company has also introduced a new subscription plan called Apple Music Voice which relies exclusively on Siri for music playback and user interaction.
The report notes that the global music streaming market grew by 109.5 million at the end of the second quarter of 2021 (about 26% year-on-year) and the total number of subscribers reached nearly 524 million. listeners.
