Two strong brands, Spotify, the top dog here, and Apple Music, the clearly lagging but growing challenger there. What are the two providers doing to keep existing customers and win new customers? What can users expect in terms of offering, sound quality, extras and of course costs?
leads: The music streaming services market is booming. This is shown by the figures recently published by the economic research institute MIDiA Research for 2021. Accordingly, by the end of the second quarter of 2021, the number of subscribers to Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and Co. had risen from 414.4 million in 2020 to 523.9 million. An increase of a full 26.4 percent, which roughly confirms the trend of previous years. As always, one might say, the clear market leader is Spotify with 32 percent. Apple Music takes second place with 15 percent, followed by Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Deezer etc.
Spotify also relies on in-house productions
The actual offer from Spotify may not be the largest compared to the competition, but whether you really miss something if you can choose from “only” 70 million tracks instead of 80 million, each user has to decide for themselves. The market leader in podcasts even relies on its own productions, for example with Jan Böhmermann and Olli Scholz. The fact that Spotify can be used on pretty much all platforms from Android and iOS to Windows and Mac to smart TVs and game consoles, to name just a few, may now be a rudimentary consensus among streaming services, and yet no one else here has it as much to offer as Spotify.
And that already applies to the free version. Here, too, the user has access to the full selection, can create their own playlists and use the radio function. However, this is “bought” with commercial breaks and a limited range of functions: The free version has no offline function, and songs cannot be selected directly in the mobile app, but can only be accessed via the shuffle function.
Apple Music sounds better than Spotify
Everything that is not included in the free version and a lot more is included in the premium version for EUR 9.99 per month (“Student” EUR 4.99; “Duo” EUR 12.99; “Family” EUR 14.99 Euro). With “Duo” and “Family”, two or six users in a household share a subscription and each receive their own premium account with their individual playlists.
The usability of Spotify is also consistently okay, but in certain points it could be even better. So it’s a bit tricky to be able to listen to music from the hard drive offline when you’re on the go. You always have to add them to playlists first. This is much less complicated with Apple Music or Deezer.
The question of quality remains, which of course means the quality of the sound. Here others are ahead of Spotify, which “only” streams at 320 kbit/s. That’s really not bad, especially not for listening to music on the go. But if you still want more and want high fidelity at home, you won’t get it from Spotify for money and certainly not for good words. Although Spotify is already planning a hi-fi subscription, there is still no bookable offer.
Quite different with Apple, which brings us to the challenger. Although Apple Music does not offer a free version, it streams in CD quality and can also advertise itself with more than 90 million tracks and over 30,000 playlists. The Apple app currently has the largest music library of all streaming services. Another advantage that Apple Music has exclusively: the streaming service is the only one with live radio moderated by musicians.
Apple Music works best in the sign of the apple
If you’re not an Apple disciple, it’s not always easy. Apple Music does not work in the browser for anyone who does not use Apple hardware, so iTunes must be installed on Windows. Also at a disadvantage: Android users, since the app does not offer any podcasts on Android. That means: Above all, those who appreciate Apple products and work with them are best served with Apple Music.
The price is still missing. That puts Apple Music on par with Spotify and most other competitors. The subscription costs EUR 9.99 per month for individuals, EUR 14.99 for families (up to 6 accounts) and EUR 4.99 for students.
All in all, Spotify is still ahead, which is probably also due to the available free version. Apple Music remains the number one challenger, but has to watch out for itself in the face of strong competitors like YouTube Music and Deezer.
Also interesting: 6 major music streaming services in comparison