Roger Fingas
With the debut of the competing Apple Music service only weeks away, Spotify on Wednesday announced that its total subscriber base has climbed to 75 million people, 20 million of whom are subscribers to its more profitable Premium tier.
The numbers represent fairly rapid growth, since at the beginning of 2015 those same figures were 60 million and 15 million, respectively. A year ago, the company had just 40 million subscribers, a quarter of them on Premium.
On Tuesday Spotify closed a $526 million funding round, $115 million of which came from European telecommunications firm TeliaSonera. The two companies will cooperate on areas like media distribution, data analytics, and advertising, according to the Wall Street Journal. The new funding gives Spotify a value of $8.53 billion.
Both announcements come hot on the heels of Monday's introduction of Apple Music, which counts Spotify as its primary competition. The services each offer a mix of on-demand streaming and radio content, and cost $10 for full functionality.
Spotify however lets people access on-demand music for free on an ad-supported tier, and is venturing into podcast and video content. The only free Apple Music content will be Beats 1, a live radio station hosted by celebrity DJs in Los Angeles, New York, and London.
Initially at least, Spotify will also enjoy much broader platform support, with apps for iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, the Web, Roku, PlayStation, and more. When Apple Music launches on June 30, it will be limited to iOS, Mac, and Windows, with Android and Apple TV ports due in the fall.
Earlier this week a rumor claimed that Apple is hoping to reach 100 million subscribers. That number would be a first in the music industry, and likely impossible without blanketing as many platforms as possible.
Charles Martin
Malcolm Owen
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
Wesley Hilliard
48 Comments
I was surprised Apple limited the free access. Seems odd that music should cost more than Netflix.
[quote name="DaveN" url="/t/186680/spotify-climbs-to-20m-paid-subscribers-picks-up-526m-in-funding-ahead-of-apple-music-launch#post_2733895"]I was surprised Apple limited the free access. Seems odd that music should cost more than Netflix.[/quote] Let me know when there's more than 30 million movies to stream on Netflix and you can download them for offline viewing. :rolleyes: Surprised people were willing to invest. Spotify can't turn a profit. Then again, people still buy Amazon stock, so...I guess if the media loves you and you can get the courts to do your dirty work, why not?
Is it true the record labels are Spotify investors?
Spotify and the others have great services. No reason why everyone needs or would want to go through Apple for everything.
Also, do we want one corporation being the jack of all trades? We all know what happens when corporations get too big. There's a case to be made for being smaller and more focused.
Apple has the curse of having to grow even when they are so big. Just like any other large company. But when you are so big...
I see competition as a good thing for consumers, so looking forward to Apple, Spotify and others competing in this space.
In the end, it won't matter that Apple borked the keynote music presentation at WWDC. It will come down to product.