Apple Music is off to a promising start, with more than 10 million users already signed up, according to a recent report. But it still has a lot of catching up to do if it wants to beat Spotify. New data suggests that the latter continues to stream around 25 times more music than Apple.
“DashGo CEO Ben Patterson says that Apple Music streams represent about 4 percent of the volume of streams he’s seeing from Spotify,” reports Recode.
DashGo isn’t just an analytics company working with estimates, either; it’s a music distributor that specializes in making indie music available through digital outlets — just like Spotify and Apple Music. So Patterson can actually see exactly how much his artists are being streaming via each service.
Now, you could argue that Apple Music has only a fraction of Spotify’s user base, which currently stands at about 75 million users worldwide. But if Apple Music has 10 million, it should be seeing at least 13 percent of the total volume Spotify is serving.
“Which would mean Apple Music is underperforming, at least for DashGo, right now,” Recode adds.
It’s worth remembering, however, that data from one company — which represents “relatively obscure acts” — won’t provide a completely accurate representation of Apple Music’s current success. Particularly as Apple Music’s focus so far appears to be on bigger acts everybody knows.
We shouldn’t read too much into these figures right now, then. We won’t get a true picture of Apple Music’s success until customers start paying for it, and it’s available on Android — then we’ll be able to compare exactly how many subscribers are willing to pay for Apple’s service over its rivals.
