When we talk about streaming music services, The first name that comes to mind for the vast majority is Spotify., Sure. And it is normal, because after all he is the dean of them. However, over the years other services, mainly Apple Music and Amazon Music, but also Deezer, YouTube Music, Tidal, etc., have tried to fight for the gold medal, in a competition that is becoming a little more difficult every day. Swedish company.
In this regard, in this competition, who has had the best cards has been Apple, of course, and it is true that Apple Music is a much more recent service, since Spotify launched in 2008, while Apple Music didn’t see the light of day until June 2015, seven years later. However, Apple’s relationship with the music industry began more than a decade earlier. Specifically, this relationship became official on April 28, 2003, with the launch of the iTunes Music Store, the digital music store that revolutionized the market, and that contributed to (and benefited from) the colossal success of the iPod.
Thus, for a long time one of Spotify’s main strengths was the size of its catalog, which for many years was the largest of all those existing at the time. However, some time ago, according to the data provided by each company, Spotify lost the first position in this regard, a position that Apple’s service rose to. And now, as we can read on Softpedia, Apple Music marks a new milestone, having reached 100 million songs on the service.
By comparison, today Spotify claims to have a total of 80 million tracks, of which just over four million are podcasts, so we are talking about just under 76 million music tracks. This tells us that Apple has four songs, for every three from Spotify. Of course, if we understand that the data provided by those from Cupertino on Apple Music, that is, the 100 million tracks, refer exclusively to music tracks, not to the sum of music and podcasts, as Spotify does.
Be that as it may, it is clear that Apple has been able to play the card of its relationships, which come from afar, with the music industry, to negotiate the presence of their catalogs in their service, to which we must add operations such as the purchase of Primerphonic. Now, of course, it is Spotify’s turn to try to regain its position. However, and given the enormous difficulties that the company would be going through to launch its HiFi music service, announced more than a year and a half ago and still without a planned debut date, we cannot be too optimistic about it.
