CIRP (Consumer Intelligence Research Partners) has analyzed the Spotify numbers in 2018, both in the US and in the rest of the world. Y puts us in perspective how Spotify is doing against the competitionespecially Apple Music.
Globally, 75 million of Spotify's 170 million active users are premium subscribers. Almost 45% of users in the world pay for the Spotify service. At the US level, according to the CIRP, it would be only 35%.
According to Mike Levin, co-founder of CIRP, Spotify's plan is to not charge or charge very little at first thanks to using the free service (with Spotify Premium ads or trials) and move the user to a premium plan later. But this has the counterpart that a monthly plan without permanence allows the user to cancel at any time and switch to another service or Spotify Free. Something that, in the American profile, represents 16% of users in each quarter.
Spotify doesn't do as well as the rest of the world. The CIRP blames this on the great competition from streaming music services on demand in the US.., but the truth is that, practically, the services are the same as we have in Spain (Apple Music, Google / YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, etc.). It seems more due to the fact that Spotify arrived late to the US., while in Europe they were pioneers. In addition, Apple Music, by percentage of iPhone users in the US, has an advantage over the European market.
The CIRP mentions other interesting data, such as that, of paid users, 55% have an individual subscription, 24% a family plan, 12% a student account and 9% contract the Hulu plan plus Spotify.
Although the Spotify numbers are not bad, It is true that the US market has not welcomed the service as we have done on the other side of the Atlantic..
