According to DMN Pro’s exclusive streaming market share data, Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music collectively account for over 90% of U.S. subscribers. Photo Credit: Fábio Lucas
Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music are today’s “big three” paid streaming services – at least in the U.S., where they claim a more than 90% market share.
That telling stat comes from DMN Pro’s new Streaming Music Subscriber Market Share database, which provides a comprehensive breakdown of on-demand platforms’ stateside reach. Included in said breakdown are plan-specific subscriber totals based on data from major music publisher statements.
Besides vetting the statements’ data, we’ve applied a uniform multiplier in order to estimate actual active users instead of simply running with account totals. Intended for solo listeners, Individual accounts are therefore counted as one subscriber apiece. But accounts attached to Spotify’s Duo plan, designed for two simultaneous listeners, can safely be multiplied by two to ballpark usership.
Family accounts are multiplied by three under our methodology, against a 0.5 multiplier for Student accounts due to the comparatively small monthly payments at hand. Importantly, the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) utilizes different multipliers when calculating royalties as opposed to gauging market share.
With this pertinent background information out of the way, Spotify (36%), Apple Music (30.7%), and Amazon Music (23.8%) boasted a cumulative 90.5% subscriber market share in the U.S. as of February of 2024.
Though it perhaps goes without saying, at the top level, the figures underscore the services’ considerable stateside presence despite stiff competition from, among others, YouTube Music. Somewhat surprisingly given the reach of YouTube proper, YouTube Music had an estimated 6.8% U.S. market share as of February.
Notably, the percentage, tacked onto the 90.5% U.S. market share behind Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music, means the four platforms commanded a staggering 97.3% of music streaming subscribers in today’s largest market.
In one of several testaments to that market’s impressive size, even YouTube Music’s 6.8% share represents 9.25 million subscribers, against 32.44 million for Amazon Music, 41.88 million for Apple Music, and 49.05 million for Spotify.
Rounding out the totals, Pandora Premium had 2.55 million subscribers (1.9% U.S. market share), Tidal had about 721,400 (0.5%), and SoundCloud had about 460,300 (0.3%). Access Industries’ Deezer isn’t featured in the list, but earnings reports indicate that the lion’s share of the Paris-headquartered company’s own customers reside mainly in Europe and different non-U.S. markets.
Looking ahead to how the sums may shift during 2024’s second half, it’s worth keeping a few key points front of mind.
First are streaming packages’ differing prices and revenue contributions. Though Spotify maintains the overall market share edge in the U.S., Apple Music, backed by an unprecedented hardware ecosystem and included in adjacent multi-service bundles, had north of four million more Family subscribers than Spotify in the States as of February.
Spotify is, of course, working to close that gap. But doing so will presumably prove more difficult as a result of the price increases the platform unveiled last month. In short, Spotify now charges more than Apple Music for each of its packages save Student in the States – including a not-insignificant $3-per-month difference between its Family tier ($19.99 monthly) and Apple Music’s ($16.99).
Apple Music could well be teeing up fresh price increases for later in the year. But as things stand, it’s not hard to see why Apple Music’s Family market share lead might hold up and even widen in the approaching months.
