Image Credit: MIDiA

MIDiA’s latest global music subscriber market share post reveals the top streaming services, as well as the fastest growing platforms.

Last week, research firm MIDiA published their ‘Global music subscriber market shares Q1 2021’ report. Unsurprisingly, Spotify still hold the top spot, but services such as Amazon Music, Google (YouTube Music) and Chinese company Tencent (QQ Music, Kugou, Kuwo and WeSing) made huge gains.

The great news for independent artists looking to make an impact online, is that the global music subscriber base is growing faster than ever. In 2020, 100 million new subscribers were added across music streaming services. This brought the total to 467 million subscribers. This is in contrast to 2019, which saw 83 million net new subscribers. Q1 2021 brought in an additional 19.5 million new subscribers, bringing the latest total to 487 million.

MIDiA states, Spotify saw 27 million net subscribers between Q1 2020 and Q1 2021. While this number is greater than any other streaming service, Spotify lost two points of market share over last year, as percentage growth trailed competitors. Google’s YouTube Music was the fastest-growing music streaming service in 2020, with a huge growth of 60%. Chinese company Tencent’s music streaming services including QQ Music, Kugou, Kuwo and WeSing collectively come in as the second fastest-growing at 40%, while Amazon Music saw a steady trajectory up 27%. Apple’s premium-only streaming service Apple Music grew 12%.

YouTube Music’s 2020 boom shows as their parent company killed off Google Play Music, the newer music streaming service is resonating in many emerging markets and with younger audiences. MIDiA says this shows early signs that YouTube Music may be to Gen Z what Spotify was to Millenials half a decade ago.

Emerging markets are central to music subscriber markets, with Latin America, Asia Pacific and Rest of the World accounting for 60% of all 2020 subscriber growth. China’s Tencent pulled in 61 million subscribers in Q1 2020, while their top competitor in the country NetEase Cloud Music grew by 18 million subscribers.

RouteNote can help independent artists and labels distribute to all of the stores and streaming services listed above and many others across the world. Distribution via RouteNote is free and artists always keep 100% of the rights to their music.