William Gallagher
A new report claims that over one million UK subscribers have cancelled their streaming services such as Apple Music in Q1 2022, citing a need to save money.
Kantar Research also notes that there is a decline in the number of young people with music streaming subscriptions in the UK.
"With inflation rising to 9% in the United Kingdom and further rises in the cost of living expected," reports the company, "the rising cancellation rates of music subscriptions is evidence that British households are starting to prioritise the spending of their disposable income."
"Over 1 million subscriptions were cancelled in the last quarter," it continues, "which has also seen the highest level of consumers citing they want to save money as the reason they want to cancel their subscription, at 37%."
For comparison, Kantar notes that in the same period in 2021, a need to save money was given as reason by 33% of people cancelling their subscriptions.
"[In the UK] subscriptions are dropping the quickest amongst younger consumers," says Kantar. "[The] percentage of under 35 having access to a music subscription having dropped from 57.0% to 53.5% year on year."
As well as saving money, Kantar's research says younger subscribers are also cancelling because of technical difficulties, limited selection of music — and too many adverts.
The research from Kantar covers all streaming services available in the UK, and specifies Apple Music, Spotify, and Amazon Music. It reports that across all of the services, the number of new music subscribers in Q1 2022 "dropped to below 1% of the population" in the UK.
Stephen Silver
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15 Comments
And those subscribers aren’t coming back either - they are finished… I wish Apple would just give me back iTunes the way it was… People are getting sick of the subscription based services. They want to have ownership of the products they buy… if they don’t upgrade, then they don’t have the latest feature, but at least they still have what they have paid for to date… I avoid subscription based services and products and will even settle for a inferior product if that product is a one time cost pricing model. Look at how that greed has killed Adobe… people can’t get away from those products fast enough now… and they are. But thats what Wall Street influenced companies do and have happen to them… deservingly so.