Apple Music has been growing steadily over the past few years, adding to Spotify’s competition. A new report from The Wall Street Journal now shows that Apple has surpassed Spotify in paid US subscribers for the first time. Apple Music has 28 million subscribers, which is 2 million more than Spotify and is still growing.
Neither company shares specific subscription numbers by region, however, WSJ claims that a source familiar with the matter confirmed that Apple Music did overtake Spotify. “Apple Inc.’s streaming-music service has been adding subscribers in the world’s biggest music market more rapidly than its Swedish rival—a monthly growth rate of about 2.6% to 3%, compared with 1.5% to 2% for Spotify,” the people said.
However, when viewing Spotify’s non-paid accounts, it still has more US users that Apple Music. Though Spotify accounts don’t bring in much revenue for the company. When it comes to overall users, Spotify still has a sizable lead compared to Apple Music. On the other hand, Apple’s music service seems to be profitable and sustainable, while Spotify’s average revenue per user is declining as the service grows.
In January Apple stated during its earnings call that Apple Music had 50 million paid subscribers globally. It is likely another official update on the streaming service’s growth will happen during the company’s Q2 earnings call, which is scheduled for April 30.