Spotify hits subscriber targets in race with Apple Music

Music streaming leader Spotify's paid subscribers rose 10 per cent in the second quarter, it said on Thursday, as it races to stay ahead of mounting competition from Apple Music, especially in the US market.

Monthly paying subscribers, which account for the bulk of Spotify’s revenue, rose to 83 million at the end of June from 75 million in the first three months of 2018 and more than double Apple’s last-reported 40 million paid users.

The figure, reported in just the second financial report since the Swedish company's April debut on the New York Stock Exchange, topped the 82 million average estimate in a Reuters poll of analysts.

Revenue growth, however, was slowed by new European data privacy rules that require users to give explicit consent for certain uses of their information. Second-quarter revenue rose 26 per cent to €1.27 billion.

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“We did see some GDPR disruption across our European markets during the second quarter but seem to be largely past that now,” the company said in a statement, referring to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, which came into effect in May.

Spotify, which launched its streaming music service a decade ago, has seen a surge in subscriber growth in recent years.

The rising popularity of subscription services is seen as a primary factor driving the improved financial health of the music industry. – Reuters