A new battle is waging in the music streaming war between Apple Music and Spotify, with Apple Music tipped to have more US subscribers than Spotify with the company’s subscriber base growing 5 per cent while the Swedish based service is only at 2 per cent.
Commentators predict Apple Music to overtake during the middle of the year.
The Wall Street Journal spoke with Apple Music with the company saying it now has 36 million paid global users, up from the 30 million it last reported in September.
However, globally Spotify is still ahead of Apple Music with 70 million paying subscribers since last month.
Apple Music has been gaining major traction for two reasons, the popularity of Apple’s devices and because the streaming service is embedded into all the devices through the Music app.
Other streaming services include Amazon Unlimited Music and YouTube.
Apple is releasing its long-awaited HomePod next week which the company says works well with an Apple Music subscription.
Spotify has been in the limelight of late after facing a US$2bn publishing lawsuit from Wixen Music Publishing claiming 10,784 of its songs were streamed/downloaded billions of times without being paid compensation. This lawsuit also quashed its hopes of filing for an IPO.
Apple Music was unveiled in June 2015.
