Roger Fingas
In terms of customer satisfaction, at least, Apple Music is the top-rated streaming music service, J.D. Power said in its first Streaming Music Satisfaction Study, published on Wednesday.
35 percent of polled Apple Music subscribers were "strongly committed" to it, according to J.D. Power's research data. Spotify and Google Play Music tied for second at 30 percent each.
62 percent of Apple's listership cited compatibility with their devices as a reason for signing up. Apple Music is baked into iOS and macOS, and while it can also be used on Android and Windows, some features — like Siri voice commands — won't work away from Apple devices. Google Play Music is integrated into Android, but only 53 percent of its customers cited compatibility as a reason to join — one percentage point higher than Spotify, which is platform-independent.
Despite Apple's emphasis on exclusives, that appears to be doing little to draw in new customers, as only 5 percent of subscribers mentioned "original content" as a motivation — the same level as Google Play Music. In fact, Google and TuneIn Radio tied for the highest levels of actual listening to exclusive content at 20 percent, two points higher than Apple.
Across all services though, J.D. Power noted that people who listened to exclusive content were more likely be satisfied, and/or recommend their service to others.
At a little over a year old, Apple Music already has over 17 million subscribers. It's still well distant of Pandora and Spotify, which have over 80 and 100 million people respectively, even if many listeners are using free ad-based tiers. Spotify, though, has over 40 million paid customers alone.
Charles Martin
Christine McKee
Oliver Haslam
William Gallagher
16 Comments
Poor MacRumors haters are gnashing their teeth. Must hate Apple. Must hate Apple. I think what's going to happen to Spotify is they'll peak at 60 to 80 million and then over time their numbers drop and they are acquired or tech companies take over and Apple just keeps gaining and overtakes them. Apple is weak on a few areas where they can copy Spotify easily. Spotify on the other hand don't get design and lack the launch platform Apple has.
I will agree to disagree with this.
No matter how many times I press the "dislike" button on a song, Apple creates a weekly mix starting with that damn song ... and it gets thrown into every single suggestion known to man. Equally as annoying .... at the beginning of Apple Music I stated I disliked all R&B / Rap ... and guess what ... it's in my weekly mix too. So good. So very SATISFIED OVER HERE. :|
Did the survey ask if they've tried other music streaming services? A lot of the users might not know there is an alternative.
The reason "exclusives" don't entice people to switch is because they last a pathetic week or two. I wouldn't call them exclusive at all.
If my Spotify monthly membership is 3 weeks from renewal and a 2 week exclusive hits Apple Music there's no need to switch since it out will be on my service before it's time to renew.