Spotify, the Swedish music streaming service, confirmed on Monday that its active monthly subscriber base has crossed the 100 million mark, which is twice the number of Apple Music subscribers. According to earlier reports, Spotify had 75 million active monthly subscribers.
Spotify was launched in Europe in October 2006 and subsequently expanded to the United States in July 2011. While it still remains the most popular streaming service worldwide, Apple Music seems to be closing the gap quickly. Both Spotify and Apple Music charge $9.99 per month for individuals, while families are required to pay $14.99.
According to Spotify, Apple Music has helped and not hurt its business. Apple Music was launched on June 30, 2015 and since then Spotify has grown at a faster rate compared to before. Currently, Spotify has outdone Skype as the most profitable European startup, with a projected valuation of about $8.5 billion, Mac Rumors reported.
Meanwhile, just two weeks before the streaming music service turns one year old, Apple services chief Eddy Cue announced at WWDC 2016 recently that Apple Music has 15 million paying subscribers. Apple Music had 11 million and 13 million subscribers in February and April respectively. In June, it claimed to have 15 million paid subscribers.
This denotes that the streaming service has been growing at a pace of about 2 million subscribers every two months. Although Apple Music paid subscriber base is still just half as big as Spotify's, the Cupertino tech titan is targeting 100 million paid subscribers.
Moreover, subscribers can expect an improved Apple Music experience, as the company offers a cleaner as well as clearer app design in iOS 10 and iTunes 12.5 in macOS Sierra, 9to5 Mac reported. Currently, Spotify and Apple Music are available on iOS, Android, macOS and CarPlay and it is expected that Amazon too will be joining the subscription party soon.
It is worth mentioning here that Spotifypays over 80 percent of the company's revenue to record labels and artists. Since its launch the Swedish DRM-based music streaming service has not yet made any profit since it spends most of its revenue to grow internationally. In the last fiscal, Spotify made an operating loss of $209 million).
Watch top most streamed songs of all times on Spotify below: