Over 12 million Australians now use music streaming services [report]

About 12.7 million Australians – or 61% of the population – use streaming music services, according to new Roy Morgan Research which collated data from a four-week window.

Three years ago, the figure was nine million with most of the gain made since early 2019.

Spotify is the clear market leader down under with eight million local users on the platform. It has more than doubled its user-base since 2017, up by 4.4 million (+122%).

The Swede’s growth has been at a faster rate than the overall market’s, and it has been attracting music streamers from rival services as it doubles-down on marketing.

Spotify’s biggest rival in this market is YouTube Music, including Google Play Music, which is now used by around 5.5 million Australians.

Google announced in recent weeks that Google Play Music will finally be shutting in 2020 after first flagging the changes almost three years ago.

In early 2020 Google Play Music had just over one million Australian users, with around half already using YouTube Music.

Google has now introduced a button for existing users of Google Play Music to switch their music libraries, playlists, and preferences over to YouTube Music.

Apple Music and SoundCloud are in third and fourth place, respectively.

Roy Morgan stresses that these new figures do not include all live radio streams and podcasts that Australians are able to listen to via these services.

Early in 2019 over 1.6 million Aussies downloaded podcasts in an average four weeks.

There are many others who livestream radio for sporting events and talkback.

In contrast to these growing services, a declining minority of 8.1 million Australians don’t use any music streaming services at all, a drop of 2.7 million from three years ago.

The quintessential Aussie streamer is female, under 35, socially aware, culturally diverse, works in a full-time white-collar job and career-focussed, tech-savvy and cashed-up.

She is more likely to be a fan of pay-TV and new movies at cinemas, a video game player, and not that interested in broadcast TV or mainstream newspapers.

Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine said, “Those listening to music online tend to be younger and more open to new ideas … ready to spend money on new experiences.

“The socially aware and career-focused Metrotechs exemplify these attitudes.”

Levine also noted that she expected trillion-dollar companies Apple Music and Amazon – already big players in Australian pay-TV — would expand in the country’s music streaming sector.

“The dynamics within both markets illustrate the power of the large global players to drive convergence and entice consumers to their platforms,” Levine said.

“In an increasingly interconnected world, the ability of these companies to enter new markets and challenge existing players means existing market leaders like Spotify need to stay on top of exactly who and where their customers are.”

Statistica’s forecast for Australian music streaming is it will hit revenues of AU$489.6 million in 2020 and, with an annual growth rate of 3.8%, reach $578.4 million by 2024.