Apple Music Gains Global Market Share, however Spotify Is Still Far Ahead

In the first half of 2018, music subscribers grew by 16% and Apple Music acquired two points of market share while Spotify kept its formidable international lead, according to mid-year information released Thursday by analysts Midia Research.

Inning accordance with the report, global subscribers reached 229.5 million from 198.6 million in between the beginning of January and the end of June-- and year-over-year development was even larger, increasing 38% and adding 62.8 million subscribers. "MIDiA preserves its viewpoint that this growth phase will last through the rest of 2018 and likely until mid-2019," the report reads. "This will be the phase at which the early-follower sectors will be tapped out in industrialized markets. Thereafter, development will be driven by mid-tier-streaming markets such as Japan, Germany, Brazil, Mexico, and Russia."

Spotify maintained its international market share of 36%, the like in Q4 2017, with 83 million subscribers, the report says, keeping in mind that the banner added more customers than any other service in the very first half of 2018: 11.9 million.

On the other hand, Apple included 2 points of market share to reach 19%, reaching 43.5 million customers. It added the second-highest number of customers: 9.2 million, with the United States being the key growth market. In the U.S., Apple Music is expected this month to surpass Spotify in terms of paid customers, and by some accounts it has actually already done so.

Amazon's services added just under half a point of market share to hold at 12%. Amazon experienced the most development within its Unlimited tier, adding 3.3 million to reach 9.5 million in H2 2018. In overall Amazon had 27.9 million customers at the end of the duration. Tencent Music, which is expected to hit the U.S. stock exchange in the coming months, reached 8% with 17.6 million subscribers, while Pandora added 500,000 customers.