From 2017 to 2018, YouTube Music grew its in-app purchase revenue more than top players Spotify, Pandora and TIDAL. Amazon Music technically grew more but it did not offer in-app purchases for most of 2017. That’s a lot of growth for YouTube Music, but it really beat out Spotify? Spotify has been purposefully driving listeners away from in-app purchases and directing them to purchase via their website. Because of this, Spotify strategically shrank IAP revenue (-52%) from 2017 to 2018.
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As you can probably guess, the bulk (82%) of YouTube Music’s IAP revenue in 2018 stems from the United States, where the company is headquartered. The drop off is steep from there, shooting down to 3.7% from the next biggest revenue market in Australia.
Amazon Music is coming up strong though (no doubt boosted by Alexa and her army of devices), having grown MAU 72% just in 2018. The app has about 2.6x more MAUs than YouTube Music, so if Amazon can retain these users, its revenue should grow past that of YouTube Music in short order.
