Spotify is number one, with 195 million paying users as of the end of the third quarter.
But behind the market leader from Sweden, things are getting more complicated on the music streaming market.
That's primarily because neither Apple nor Amazon regularly release numbers for their music services.
Both groups focus on the subscribers of their services as a whole.
Benjamin Fisher
Editor in Business.
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Amazon last announced in early 2020 that it had around 55 million users of the music service – including the free Prime offer.
Apple had “more than 60 million” in June 2019.
Youtube reported more than 80 million subscribers in mid-November 2022, Youtube Music and Youtube Premium combined.
Spotify ahead of Apple and Tencent
The analyzes of the British analysis company Midia Research are therefore suitable for a better overview.
According to the latest data, Spotify had a 30.5 percent market share in the first half of 2022, with a total of 616.2 million music streaming subscribers worldwide, as reported by Midia director Mark Mulligan on his blog.
Apple Music had 84.7 million subscribers, Amazon 82.2 million and YouTube Music 55.1 million.
In third place is the Chinese tech giant Tencent with its music service (82.7 million).
Netease is another Chinese service in sixth place (37.6 million).
Almost all major services continue to grow, Mulligan says, but the Chinese ones especially fast.
Last but not least, the significant growth of Tencent and Netease is responsible for Spotify's dwindling market share in the overall comparison.
At the end of the year, the Swedes were still at 33.2 percent.
Like the other Western services, Spotify is not available in China.
Mulligan also pointed out in his blog post that growth in established Western markets will continue to slow, while other regions should continue to see stronger growth rates.