Apple Music reaches 20 million subscribers. Tidal keeps floundering. Should Spotify consider their “no-exclusives” policy?
Apple released their latest numbers for Apple Music, and the news is good. In just 18 months since launch, Apple Music has crossed 20 million paid subscribers. In September, the Cupertino company reported 17 million. This marks an impressive 15 percent jump in just three months.
In addition, Billboard reports that 60% of subscribers have not purchased iTunes Music Store content. Over 50% of users live outside of the United States. This includes Canada, China, South Africa, Japan, Russia, Brazil, and India.
SVP of Internet Software and Products told Billboard,
“It’s been quite a year. We were thrilled to see that we could take [artists’] passions and drive them all the way to No. 1. Chance the Rapper, who we put on Apple Music exclusively, hit the top 10 on the Billboard charts [based on streams alone], and I can’t recall that being done before.”
The music streaming service’s gamble on exclusive contracts seems to have worked. Cue said,
“They work really well for everybody concerned — they’re great for the label, they work for the artist and for us.”
So, does an “across-the-board” promotion policy work?
“It’s really about launching things. Sometimes it makes sense to do that.”
Apple Music is now just under half of Spotify’s total paid subscribers. In September, Spotify announced that their service counts with 40 million paid subscribers. However, the Swedish music streaming service first launched in 2008. Apple picked up 20 million paid subscribers in just 18 months. This is also bad news for Jay Z and Tidal. The company reported back in May barely 3 million subscribers. Tidal has followed a similar “exclusive-only” deal with Kanye West and Beyoncé. The strategy, in addition to offering high-fidelity music, appears to have failed. Tidal has yet to announce current paid subscriber numbers.
tidal also hasn’t paid any distributors or aggregators royalties at all this year…
All 4 of streamers, together with YouTube, Pandora and XM no matter how many subs they will gain are on the road TO CONVERT $200B OF MUSIC BUSINESS to $25B of subs and ads! – we hope before 2025!