Swedish music service Spotify, the biggest name in music-streaming, now has an impressive 130 million subscribers who pay for the premium service and about 163 million accounts who are on a free, ad-driven tier, the company announced Wednesday.
According to Spotify’s financial earnings for the March 2020 quarter, released today, the company has managed to lure in an impressive six million new paying subscribers to its platform from the end of the previous quarter three months ago.
Compared with the year-ago period, Spotify has gained 30 million new paying customers.
The company says the coronavirus COVID-19 situation has changed some habits around how people consume music because “every day now looks like the weekend”, with listening time around activities like cooking, doing chores, family time and relaxing at home each increasing significantly over the past few weeks.
Audio has also taken on a greater role in managing the stress and anxiety many are feeling in today’s unprecedented environment. “Two in five consumers we surveyed in the US said they were listening to music to manage stress more than they typically do, which explains the recent rise we’ve seen in searches for ‘chill’ and ‘instrumental'”, noted Spotify.
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Apple doesn’t report Apple Music user base in its financial documents, making direct comparison difficult. The most recent official data point we have for Apple Music dates back to June 2019Â when the Cjupertinb tech giant reported passing 60 million paid subscribers.
Both services offer a free trial, but Apple Music doesn’t have a free tier like Spotify does, so take that into account as well. Apple Music may see accelerated adoption in the coming period because Apple last week announced a major expansion of its many services, including making its music service available in an additional 52 countries and regions.
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Earlier this month, Spotify updated its mobile app enabling Siri integration on all Apple Watch models powered by the watchOS 6.0 software or later. In March 2020, Spotify rolled out a new app for children featuring curated playlists, elevated privacy and no advertising.
If you’re on team Pandora, you’ll probably like that their official Apple Watch app now supports Apple’s personal assistant for voice controls.