As the driving force of the music industry, streaming platforms have added hundreds of millions of users and nearly tripled their revenue in the past five years. However, some platforms have grown their subscriber base much faster than others.
According to data presented by OnlyAccounts.io, the number of people paying for YouTube Music subscriptions has skyrocketed by a whopping 2,750% in the past five years, turning it into the fastest-growing streaming platform in the music industry.
YouTube Music’s Subscriber Base Grew 12x Faster than Spotify’s and 24x Faster than Apple Music’s
Although the music streaming industry has seen a considerable increase in available services over the past years, a few giants still dominate the entire market. Spotify is the largest among them. But despite having the lion’s share in the global music streaming user base, the Swedish platform loses the race with YouTube Music when talking about user growth.
According to a Statista survey, which analyzed subscriber growth of the largest streaming platforms in the past five years, YouTube Music has grown much faster than any other service in this market.
In 2017, YouTube Music had only 2.8 million subscribers, twenty times less than Spotify, which counted 59 million subscribers that year. In the next five years, YouTube Music’s subscriber base has swelled by an impressive 2,757% and hit 80 million last year. The market’s largest player, Spotify, has seen 12 times smaller subscriber growth in this period, with their total number rising by 218% to 188 million.
YouTube Music’s growth is even more impressive when compared to other major streaming service providers. Statistics show its subscriber base grew 24 times faster than Apple Music’s, which saw a 114% growth in this period. Last year, the platform had 88 million subscribers, up from 27 million back in 2017.
The Statista survey showed Amazon’s music streaming platform saw the second-largest growth in this period. Five years ago, Amazon Music had only 8 million subscribers. This figure surged by a massive 825% since then and hit 74 million last year.
More than 1.1 Billion People to Use Music Streaming Services by 2027
Although the world’s largest streaming services have added hundreds of millions of subscribers in the past five years, the upward trend will continue in the future, driven by user growth in the entire market.
According to a Statista survey, the number of people using music streaming platforms is expected to hit 920 million by the end of 2023, up from roughly 800 million last year. This figure is forecasted to grow by another 37% in the next four years, with more than 1.1 billion people using music streaming services by 2027.
