Apple Music reportedly has more paid subscribers in the U.S. than Spotify

Apple Music has reportedly surpassed Spotify in the number of paid subscribers to each service in the U.S. "People familiar with the matter" said that Apple Music had 28 million American subscribers in February, compared with Spotify's 26 million, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Neither music streaming service publicizes their exact subscription statistics, which makes the details difficult to discern, but it's estimated that including the number of people who listen to Spotify with ads, not paying for the premium version, Spotify's listenership still outstrips Apple's.
But Apple Music has "advantages" over Spotify, CNBC explained. Its app is pre-installed on iPhones, and Apple has partnered with Verizon, the largest mobile carrier in the U.S., to bundle Apple Music with certain cell phone plans. While Spotify has similar deals with Sprint and Samsung, it might not be enough to overcome Apple's numbers.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Neither Apple nor Spotify have confirmed the numbers yet. Read more about the race between music subscription services at The Wall Street Journal.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Shivani is the editorial assistant at TheWeek.com and has previously written for StreetEasy and Mic.com. A graduate of the physics and journalism departments at NYU, Shivani currently lives in Brooklyn and spends free time cooking, watching TV, and taking too many selfies.
-
Electronic Arts to go private in record $55B deal
speed read The video game giant is behind ‘The Sims’ and ‘Madden NFL’
-
New York court tosses Trump's $500M fraud fine
Speed Read A divided appeals court threw out a hefty penalty against President Trump for fraudulently inflating his wealth
-
Trump said to seek government stake in Intel
Speed Read The president and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan reportedly discussed the proposal at a recent meeting
-
US to take 15% cut of AI chip sales to China
Speed Read Nvidia and AMD will pay the Trump administration 15% of their revenue from selling artificial intelligence chips to China
-
NFL gets ESPN stake in deal with Disney
Speed Read The deal gives the NFL a 10% stake in Disney's ESPN sports empire and gives ESPN ownership of NFL Network
-
Samsung to make Tesla chips in $16.5B deal
Speed Read Tesla has signed a deal to get its next-generation chips from Samsung
-
FCC greenlights $8B Paramount-Skydance merger
Speed Read The Federal Communications Commission will allow Paramount to merge with the Hollywood studio Skydance
-
Tesla reports plummeting profits
Speed Read The company may soon face more problems with the expiration of federal electric vehicle tax credits