Study: Spotify’s Android and iOS apps most popular globally

A new report from app analytics firm App Annie places Spotify’s Android and iOS apps as most popular of streaming music service around the world in the third quarter. The data in The Mobile Music Streaming report is based on revenue, active users and app downloads.

The Swedish company was a clear leader in Australia, Canada, Mexico, Brazil and most of Europe. But Pandora is in the lead in the United States for most active users on iOS and Android devices.

The global list was a reflection of the fluctuating landscape of music streaming as new players enter to cash in on consumers’ move from downloading. The relaunched TIDAL came in at #5 in revenue after Deezer at #3 (making its debut on the list) and the now defunct Beats Music at #4.

Rhapsody was at #6, Rdio (now bought out by Pandora) at #7, Slacker Radio at #8 and Japan’s LINE MUSIC making its debut at #9. Rounding off the Top 10 is California’s TuneInRadio which has100,000 real radio stations and 4 million on-demand programs and podcasts from around the world.

The report also stated that mobile music streaming is “driving the next digital revolution.” The top streaming apps worldwide saw data consumption per active Android phone user grow by 25% year-on-year while downloads increased by around 15% and revenue from in-app purchases doubled.

As streaming rapidly takes over from downloads, The Mobile Music Streaming report also identified the growth areas. “New opportunities are growing and being served by players in Asian markets where local content puts regional players ahead of global giants,” it said.

“Traditional FM radio networks are finding some traction with apps, potentially providing a model that networks in other markets can replicate. Mixtape streaming apps are on the rise, highlighting the value users place in new music discovery.”

Ad-supported free tiers of streaming services have also proved popular with listeners even though record companies are trying to get rid of them.

Those offering an on-demand library were more popular than those proffering interactive or non-interactive radio streaming. A future indication is how Spotify, Pandora and Apple have expanded to live music recommendations and sales of concert tickets and merchandise.

The future for music streaming services is their need to find new revenue sources and markets or go the way of Beats Music and Rdio.

Both Spotify and Pandora gross US$1 billion a year. But their profitability remains a problem, especially with licensing and royalty payments (even if the music industry does complain these are too small). The additional problem is the arrival of tech empires as Apple, Google and Amazon whose music streaming services are set up only to draw customers into their worlds to buy the products, and quite happy for the streaming divisions to pay huge royalties and rates and remain as loss-makers.

App Annie believes that Spotify has room to grow in emerging markets. In figures supplied by Spotify, 74 million listeners streamed over 20 billion hours of music in 2015, with 2 billion playlists. Its personalized Discover Weekly playlist scored 1.7 billion streams in five months.

But Pandora’s CEO Brian McAndrews says Spotify is burning through money to expand its user base and that its business model is not sustainable.

In any case, Pandora is focussed on launching itself in more markets, as it is currently on in the US, Australia and New Zealand. As reported recently in TMN, it has dropped its confrontational stance with record companies and publishers and been offering an olive branch to them.

This is through agreeing to pay greater royalties and publicly stating that services should kill off free tiers and force consumers to accept that music has an intrinsic level – a mantra chanted by the labels. All this will lead to getting those licensing deals it needs to expand internationally.