Apple Music is poised to overtake music streaming leader Spotify in US paid subscribers, according to unnamed sources cited by The Wall Street Journal. Apple will surpass Spotify in the world’s biggest music market this summer if its current monthly growth rate of 5 percent continues, said the sources, adding that Spotify is growing at a slower 2 percent rate. Although neither company publicly breaks out figures for the US or any other single market, Apple Music told the WSJ it now has 36 million paid global users, up from the 30 million it last reported in September, around half Spotify’s worldwide total of 70 million.
The sources add that Apple Music already has a slight edge on Spotify in the US when people who are on free trials are taken into account. Apple Music has three to four times the number of such trial users as Spotify, in part because it doesn’t offer a free tier. Also, all Apple Music subscribers are entered automatically into a free initial three-month period.
