The Music & Audio app market may be approaching saturation, according to recent figures released by data.ai. Although downloads of Music & Audio apps grew considerably in China, they were flat worldwide and decreased in the U.S., per the report.
Indeed, each successive quarter from Q4 2020 through Q4 2021 saw a drop in the number of downloads in the US, from 43.55 million in Q4 2020 to 39.78 million in Q1 2021 and 36.36 million in Q4 2021.
Globally, the number of downloads dropped from Q4 2020 (488.3 million) through Q2 2021 (430.3 million) before rebounding to end the year in about the same position as the year-earlier period (486.7 million).
Within the US, Spotify was the most downloaded Music & Audio entertainment app throughout 2021, followed each quarter by Pandora Music, SoundCloud, and YouTube Music. Shazam rounded out the top 5 each quarter save for Q1 (Amazon Music).
Spotify continues to cement its dominance in the online audio space. It was recently named the 3rd-most relevant brand in the U.S., and recent survey results contained in the latest Infinite Dial report indicate that it has higher familiarity among the 12+ population (82%) than any other online audio brand. Additionally, the same study reveals that more respondents listen to Spotify (35%) on a monthly basis than any other service, including YouTube Music (23%) and Pandora (18%).
Number of Radio App Downloads Up Globally, Down in the U.S.
Unlike Music & Audio apps, Radio app downloads surged at the end of last year, with the Q4 figure of 83.94 million being almost 33% higher than the year-earlier period (63.3 million).
However it wasn’t the same story in the U.S., as the number of Radio app downloads steadily declined throughout the year, from 9.35 million in Q4 2020 to 8.91 million in Q1 2021 and 7.81 million in Q4 2021.
Within the U.S., iHeartRadio was the most downloaded Radio app each quarter of the year, followed each time by TuneIn Radio and Simple Radio by Streema.
SOURCE: data.ai, 23 Geary Street, Suite 800, San Francisco, CA 94108