New data from Counterpoint this week underscores the continued growth of streaming music as the competition intensifies between Apple Music and Spotify. According to the data, Apple Music’s subscriber base grew by 36% in 2019, giving Apple a 19% share of the total paid subscriptions in the industry.

Counterpoint notes that Apple Music also accounted for a 24% share of total revenues in the industry. These numbers compare to Spotify, which locked in a 35% share of total paid subscriptions and 31% of total revenue. For streaming industry as a whole, subscriptions grew 32% year-on-year according to Counterpoint, reaching 358 million subscriptions.

Counterpoint also notes that Amazon Music subscriptions reached a 15% share of the industry for the first time, up from 10% in 2018.

For Apple, analysts believed that improvements to the Apple Music experience continue to drive switchers from Spotify, while Spotify’s focus on exclusive content and extended promotional deals is helping its growth.

Counterpoint analyst Abhilash Kumar said:

“Spotify maintained its top spot with the help of promotional activities like free Spotify Premium for three months, price cuts, customized campaigns like Spotify and a focus on exclusive content. Tech giants like Amazon, Apple, Google have started focusing on music streaming and have sufficient cash at their disposal to give stiff competition to Spotify. Apple Music is making improvements in its app like the introduction of night mode, curated playlists to target a group, etc. Similarly, Amazon Music has been trying lossless music and is creating its own niche where it competes with Tidal.”

Looking forward, Counterpoint expects online music streaming subscriptions to grow more than 25% year-over-year- in 2020 despite the economic uncertainty caused by COVID-19. This would drive total subscriptions to over 450 million by the end of this year, analysts say.

You can read the full release from Counterpoint here.

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