Photo Credit: Daniel Romero
Who has more subscribers, Netflix or Spotify? As Spotify expands its subscription options to include additional tiers (like Netflix), the music streaming service continues to see growth.
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek confirmed during a recent investor call that Spotify has reached 246 million paying subscribers. He says those customers “want a much better version of Spotify” and he believes they’re willing to pay for it. Ek says a new Spotify Premium Deluxe tier is aimed at those customers—with a premium price attached.
“Something that could be $5 above the current premium tier; it’s probably around a $17 or $18 price point. But sort of a deluxe version of Spotify that has all of the benefits that the normal Spotify version has but a lot more control, a lot higher quality across the board, and some other things that I’m not ready to talk about just yet,” Ek told investors. Spotify’s plans for a HiFi tier have been vaporware until now—oft-talked about but never seen or heard. That’s after Apple Music took the wind out of its sails by offering Dolby Atmos spatial audio at no additional charge.
Meanwhile, Netflix’s approach of cracking down on password sharing seems to have paid off for the video streaming company. It reported 277.65 million paid subscribers worldwide as of Q2 2024—a growth of 8 million subscribers over the previous quarter. Netflix has confirmed most of its subscribers are based in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa range, accounting for 94 million of Netflix’s total global subscriber base—about two million more than North America.
Netflix launched in the MENA region in 2016, while Spotify was a relative late-comer to the region in 2018. That two year lead is one reason why Spotify is behind Netflix in paid subscribers, but Spotify also plays second fiddle to a regional streaming service in the Middle East & North Africa as well. Anghami’s local partnerships and payment options have made it hugely popular, with 58% of MENA market share for music streaming.
Meanwhile, revenues from MENA’s music industry grew 23.8% in 2022, with 95.5% of that growth coming from streaming revenue. While Anghami’s market leading position helped revolutionize music streaming in MENA, Spotify has dedicated a marketing budget to its regional pushes. The music streaming market in MENA is expected to double from $1.5B in 2019 to $3.3B by 2027—will growth in this region help Spotify reach more paid subscribers than Netflix by that same date? Only time will tell.
