Streaming: the world ranking unveiled, Spotify far ahead

The MIDiA institute published this Wednesday its annual report on the state of music streaming
paying in 2021 worldwide.

No surprise, Spotify still dominates the market by far. However, some players have experienced interesting growth, particularly in emerging markets.

A market with dynamic growth

According to studies by the MIDiA institute, the paid music streaming market continued its dynamic growth in the second half of 2021. In total, almost 524 million people around the world have subscribed to at least one of these platforms. This is 26.4% more than the same period at the end of 2020, or 109.5 million new subscribers.

This does not mean that the actors have significantly enriched themselves. As the institute notes, users are paying less than before. A large number of them turn to bundled offers (family or duo subscriptions) or to reduced prices reserved for students, for example, not to mention those who benefit from the arrival of services in new territories.

Spotify still far ahead

However, this boom in the paid music streaming market does not benefit everyone: Spotify dominates the music streaming market by far. The Scandinavian platform remains largely in the lead with 31% market share, followed by Apple Music (15%) and Amazon Music (13%), which continues its strong growth.

Nevertheless, for the second consecutive year, YouTube Music is experiencing rapid growth over one year and now reaches 8% market share. If the figure may seem derisory compared to that of the leader, Google’s music service has still gained 50% more subscribers in 2021, the majority being young users. The former core target of Spotify in the 2010s, recalls MIDiA.

However, YouTube Music’s growth remains as significant as players in emerging markets, where Tencent Music and NeatEase racked up 35.7 million new subscribers in the space of a year despite being available only in China. Same story for Yandex, which doubled its shares over the same period to now represent 2% of the world market. All three combined, the services represent only 20% of the market, but they alone contributed to a 37% increase in total new subscribers worldwide.

Not enough to shake Spotify, however, the Scandinavian platform having attracted the most new paying users over the period, although the erosion of its market share is “constant and persistent”. The institute recalls that Spotify represented 34% of the sector in 2019 before regularly giving up some shares to the competition.

Source: MidiaResearch