Research finds the base of global music subscribers grew to 523.9M by the end of Q2 2021, up 26.4% YoY; Spotify's market share dropped from 33% to 31%
MIDiA's annual music subscriber market shares report is now available here (see below for more details of the report). Here are some of the key findings.
Context & Ripple Effects
The paid-streaming market had reached 358M total subscriptions in 2019, with Spotify at 31% share in that earlier measurement. MIDiA now places the base at 523.9M by Q2 2021, while Spotify’s share has moved from 33% to 31%.
Spotify’s own Q2 results reported 165M paying subscribers, up 20% year over year, showing continued subscriber gains even as the overall market expanded faster and its global share narrowed.
First-order effects
- Spotify retains the largest cited share but accounts for a smaller portion of the global subscriber base than it did at 33%, despite continued paid-user growth.
- Other music subscription services collectively rise from 67% to 69% of the market, giving them a larger share of new subscriber demand.
Second-order effects
- Spotify’s rivals have more room to pursue scale without dislodging Spotify outright, increasing pressure on Spotify to convert market growth into paid-subscriber growth at least as fast as the sector.
- The gap between Spotify’s 20% paid-subscriber growth and the market’s 26.4% growth makes share retention, rather than absolute subscriber additions alone, a more relevant competitive measure.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern persists, music subscriptions become less concentrated around a single leader: market expansion can support multiple scaled services while gradually reducing Spotify’s relative position.
- The category increasingly illustrates a subscription growth gap in which a large incumbent can add subscribers yet lose share when the wider market grows faster.
The trend: Global music streaming is moving from leader-led expansion toward a broader multi-service subscription market in which relative growth determines share.