Music streaming (finally) has more paying subscribers than Netflix

When the idea of the streaming age was first introduced nearly a decade ago the music business at large was worried that relying solely on song streams instead of album sales would destroy the industry as we knew it. In a way, they weren’t wrong. Streaming has changed everything, but unlike many expected the changes have been largely good. 

At the end of 2015, the total number of paying music streaming subscribers across all platforms was about three million people behind the amount that paid for Netflix. This was a massive change in a positive direction from the 14 million person difference that existed at the end of 2014, which is not all that unlike the 41.4 million to 28 million difference that existed at the end of 2013.

Many believed Netflix was a streaming giant that could not be toppled in terms of paying subscribers, but according to a new report from the highly-respected Midia Research tells another, perhaps historic, story.

According to the report, which you can see visualized above, 100.4 million people are currently paying for a subscription music streaming service. This is a staggering number, especially when compared to the fact Netflix ended the year – a year filled with explosive growth and popularity, I might add – with just 87.8 million subscribers.

The 100.4m subscription base represented a 48% year-on-year rise on 2015’s IFPI number (68m).

Midia’s Mark Mulligan estimates that around 43m of these were subscribing to Spotify, with 20.9m signed up to Apple Music, 6.9m to Deezer, 4.5m to Napster and just 1m to TIDAL.

Netflix has projected their current growth habits will continue through 2020, but it’s hard to say what will happen in the world of music. Could a single service one day have numbers to match that of Netflix? Only time will tell.