While recent ERA and BPI figures have made much of the growth in revenue and consumption of music streaming services in the UK, they didn’t explains how many people in Britain pay for a music subscription.
Now we have a – tentative – answer: ERA consumer tracking figures – which are based on 2.5k people in the UK and included in Music Ally’s latest Country Focus (available to our subscribers) – suggest that between between 8.1m and 8.3m people in Britain subscribed to a music streaming service at the start of 2018, although this figure counts each individual on a family subscription.
Interviewed for the same piece, Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the BPI and BRIT Awards, cited a slightly lower figure of 7.5m to 8m subscribers, based on industry sources.
Unsurprisingly, Spotify rules the roost in the UK. ERA / Fly Research figures, based on consumer panel research, indicate that among all Britons who stream music (free and paid) 74% have recently used Spotify, 17% have recently used Prime Music as part of their Prime subscription, 6% have used Amazon Music Unlimited standalone and 14% Apple. Among those who pay to stream, 42% do so with Spotify, 13% with Apple, 26% with Prime Music bundled as part of their Prime membership and 5% with Amazon Music Unlimited.
Both ERA and the BPI see considerable room for growth, with ERA CEO Kim Bayley suggesting that the UK could eventually see up to 30m paid subscribers to music streaming services. For bonus content, read our full Q&A with the BPI’s Geoff Taylor in which he talks about streaming, safe harbours, Brexit and industry diversity.
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