Spotify maintains a comfortable lead in the streaming music subscriber market

[Shawn Knight]

The big picture: Spotify has managed to maintain a respectable distance between itself and the next closest competitor in the global streaming music subscription market. As impressive as Spotify’s lead over the competition is, its market share actually dipped two percent quarter over quarter and three percent compared to Q2 2019. In fact, it was YouTube Music that saw the biggest gains over the trailing 12 months leading up to Q2 2021.

MIDiA in its latest music subscriber market share report said Spotify was the top digital service provider with a market share of 31 percent as of Q2 2021. Apple Music trailed far behind with a 15 percent market share followed by Amazon Music and Tencent Music, each having captured 13 percent slice of the pie.

YouTube Music, NetEase, Deezer, Yandex and others collectively populate the bottom quarter of the market.

MIDiA is presenting what some might consider older data simply because the market analysis process takes a while to complete.

MIDiA said YouTube Music is especially popular among Gen Z and younger millennials, which may have Spotify concerned considering its core base of millennial subscribers is beginning to age.

The market as a whole continues to exhibit strong growth. At the end of Q2 2021, there were 523.9 million music subscribers worldwide. That’s 109.5 million (26.4 percent) more than at the same period a year earlier.

Image credit: Omid Armin

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https://www.techspot.com/news/93066-spotify-maintains-comfortable-lead-streaming-music-subscriber-market.html

 

[grvalderrama]

I have a premium Tidal suscription, I'm never going back to Spotify. Spotify app is better but the audio quality of Tidal has no rival, it's just worlds better.

 

[rrwards]

I have a premium Tidal suscription, I'm never going back to Spotify. Spotify app is better but the audio quality of Tidal has no rival, it's just worlds better.

Apple Music Lossless / Atmos quality is the same or better than Tidal, costs less, and you get a better app experience. I'm not saying this to be a **** either, just recommending you check it out since the Tidal app is garbage lol.

 

[grvalderrama]

Apple Music Lossless / Atmos quality is the same or better than Tidal, costs less, and you get a better app experience. I'm not saying this to be a **** either, just recommending you check it out since the Tidal app is garbage lol.

Agreed, Tidal app could be so much better. Not interested in atmos audio though, don't have roof or up firing speakers. Tidal also has loseless quality in all content and in much has master quality which is great. By the way, how much is the apple subscription? Do I need an apple device to play it?

 

[punctualturn]

I really like Pandora, but that graph makes me fear that their days are counted.

 

[Bl00dyMinded]

I've actually have had the best experience with Spotify. Just change your audio settings to high quality always. Prefer it over Tidal and Apple.

 

[rrwards]

Agreed, Tidal app could be so much better. Not interested in atmos audio though, don't have roof or up firing speakers. Tidal also has loseless quality in all content and in much has master quality which is great. By the way, how much is the apple subscription? Do I need an apple device to play it?

Yeah atmos isn't super important, just a nice thing to have if your audio equipment supports it. Apple Music is $10 a month and their entire library is available lossless. You don't need an apple device, works great on my android phone.

I've actually have had the best experience with Spotify. Just change your audio settings to high quality always. Prefer it over Tidal and Apple.

Spotify high quality is in no way the same as lossless offered by Tidal or Apple Music.

 

[grvalderrama]

I've actually have had the best experience with Spotify. Just change your audio settings to high quality always. Prefer it over Tidal and Apple.

Highest quality offer by Spotify is 320 kbps, which is the lowest quality offer by Tidal (called normal quality), and it's got 4 different quality presets... So no, it's not the same if you are interested in hifi audio, you'd lose an incredible amount of details of your favorite music.

 

[Duke9192]

I have a premium Tidal suscription, I'm never going back to Spotify. Spotify app is better but the audio quality of Tidal has no rival, it's just worlds better.

I would have to say Qobuz takes the crown for audio quality. Tidals Mqa format cannot match the 24 bit 192 kHz goodness of Qobuz. Just my opinion

 

[Tinderbox]

I started with iTunes and mostly have used Spotify in the streaming era. I sure do miss being able to tag songs and create very custom playlists based on metadata though.

 

[tellmewhy]

I've actually have had the best experience with Spotify. Just change your audio settings to high quality always. Prefer it over Tidal and Apple.

As you can see and from the video below, what we interpret as loss of sound quality from lossy audio compression algorithms (such as mp3) is primarily a loss in the higher frequency range.

 

[Knot Schure]

I have a premium Tidal suscription, I'm never going back to Spotify. Spotify app is better but the audio quality of Tidal has no rival, it's just worlds better.

Tidal isn't lossless. MQA is a disaster. You must be listening with sub-standard audio equipment, as I spotted Tidal as terrible quality, right away.
These people seem to agree with me: "I published music on Tidal to test MQA - MQA Review"

So I cancelled them.
Qobuz sounds much better, but their app, and quantity of music, don't compare. Seems I can't win.