A new survey reveals that over one million individuals in the United Kingdom canceled their subscriptions to music streaming services such as Apple Music, Spotify, etc in the first quarter of 2022.
Music streaming services seeing a decline in the United Kingdom, Apple Music affected among others
Kantar recently reported a decline in the number of young people with subscriptions to music streaming services in the United Kingdom. The decline has been attributed to inflation.
With inflation rising to 9% in the United Kingdom and further rises in the cost of living expected, the rising cancellation rates of music subscriptions is evidence that British households are starting to prioritise the spending of their disposable income. Over 1 million subscriptions were cancelled in the last quarter, which has also seen the highest level of consumers citing they want to save money as the reason they want to cancel their subscription, at 37%. This number is up 4% from the same period last year.
As per the survey conducted by the publication, Apple Music saw 12.4% new subscribers in the United Kingdom during Q1 2022. 11.3% in Australia, 6.4% in Germany, and 9.7% in the United States. During the same period, Spotify saw 22.1% new subscribers in the United Kingdom, 42.6% in Australia, 26.4% in Germany, and 14.1% in the United States
The publication says that the ongoing cost-of-living crisis in the United Kingdom in addition to other factors has “created a small drop in penetration of total individuals who have access to at least one music subscription”
One of the reasons for this drop in penetration is due to a decline in the number of young people with subscriptions. 600k fewer under 35s have access to a music subscription compared to the previous year, with the penetration of students who have access dropping from 67% to 59%.
In addition to saving money, the publication says younger subscribers are also canceling subscriptions due to limited selection of music, technical difficulties, and too many advertisements.
Spotify has also been facing some issues with subscriber satisfaction over the last three months. This suggests that consumers might be shifting from Spotify to other music streaming services.
Read more:
