In late 2017, Apple released a podcast analytics tool to helps podcasters better understand how their listeners interact with their podcast. This tool allows you to go beyond the raw download numbers and see what’s working and what isn’t in your podcast episodes.
These statistics from Apple can give you insights about your podcast you can't get anywhere else.
In the first half of 2018, music subscribers grew by 16% and Apple Music gained two points of market share while Spotify maintained its formidable global lead, according to mid-year data published. Apple Podcasts is the undisputed champion of podcast apps. It comes pre-installed on every new iPhone and has more listeners than Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher. Chances are most of your podcast listeners use the Apple Podcasts app to listen to your show. Spotify - 170 million. Perhaps the best-known player in the streaming game, Spotify changed the music industry when it finally picked up steam years ago, and it hasn’t slowed down since.
Why is understanding your Apple Podcasts data important?
Apple Podcasts is the undisputed champion of podcast apps. It comes pre-installed on every new iPhone and has more listeners than Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher. Chances are most of your podcast listeners use the Apple Podcasts app to listen to your show.
In order to stand out among the sea of podcasts out there, you need to know how to improve your content. This means going beyond podcast downloads and understanding how people are consuming your episodes and how to find more listeners just like them.
Even with a new podcast, getting a more detailed understanding of your current audience is the key to thriving in the podcasting space.
1. Find your stats
Your podcast’s analytics are available through Apple’s Podcasts Connect website.
To log in, use the email and password you used to submit your podcast feed to Apple Podcasts.
Once you’re logged in, you’ll see all the podcasts submitted using your Apple ID. Click on the drop-down menu in the top left of your browser and select Podcast Analytics.
Once you’ve selected the Podcast Analytics tab from the drop-down menu, click on your podcast to view the analytics dashboard.
2. Why is my data incomplete?
You might notice the there are fewer plays in Apple Podcast Analytics than you'd see on stats page in Buzzsprout. That's what we'd expect since Apple is only showing the plays they can verify. Here is the data Apple includes in your analytics:
Data includes devices with iOS 11 or iTunes 12.7, or later, and HomePod. Data might be delayed by up to 72 hours.
Podcasts Connect will display all of the data gathered from your listeners that fall into this specific category. That will not be all of your Apple Podcasts listeners, but it will be the majority.
Also, it’s important to recognize that the data you're looking at amounts to ~50% of your overall podcast listeners (Apple Podcasts plays 60% of all podcast episodes, so the number captured by Podcasts Connect is a large percentage of those plays). For total downloads and overall trends, you’re better served looking at the stats provided by your podcast host.
These are a subset of your plays, but there is a lot of insight you can get from Apple's analytics. Here are three stats that will help you improve your podcast.
3. Three podcast statistics that matter
Stat #1: Average Consumption by Episode
When you land on the analytics dashboard for your podcast, scroll down until you see Recent Episodes. Once you’re there, look at the stat in the far-right column.
The percentage you see here is the average amount of time your audience is listening to each episode. For example, if you have a 20-minute episode with a 75% average consumption rating, that means that, on average, your audience stops listening to that episode after 15 minutes.
By glancing at this column, you can quickly identify which episodes are performing better than others. Take that information and try to make more episodes like the ones with close to 100% consumption to give your listeners a better experience.
Note: If your average consumption is above 100%, that means people are listening to the same episode more than once.
Stat #2: Episode Listen Duration
For this next stat, you need to click on one of your episodes. When you do, this graph will appear.
This graph shows you the percentage of people that are still listening to the episode at every point in time. As you can see from this example, a majority of people stuck around until right at the end of the episode and is how you'd like for all your episodes to perform.
How is this helpful? This graph tells you when your audience has decided to stop listening to you. Cross-reference the time stamp with the podcast episode itself and see if there’s something about that part of the episode that might make someone stop listening. Is it a poorly placed dynamic ad? Did you start to ramble? Did the volume suddenly drop? What might have contributed to a loss in interest by your listeners?
Notice how most of the people that listened to this episode suddenly jumped ship right around 19 minutes. What happened? The title of this episode was “The best microphone for podcasters.” At the 19 minute mark we finished talking about microphones and shifted into audio recording software, so those that were listening for microphone advice got what they needed and started listening to something else.
Identifying why someone might have stopped listening to an episode can help you avoid the mistakes that prevent people from finishing your podcast episodes.
Stat #3: Devices Subscribed
Below the listener duration graph for each episode, you’ll see a row of additional statistics. On the far right, you’ll notice a percentage called “Devices Subscribed.”
'Devices Subscribed' is the percentage of unique devices that subscribed when listening to the episode. If you see 75%, that means that 75% of the people who found your podcast through this episode decided to subscribe to your podcast.
How is this helpful? A higher percentage means that the first-time listener was impressed by your podcast and wants to hear more from you. A lower percentage means they didn’t get what they were expecting or weren’t satisfied with your podcast and decided they don’t want to hear any more episodes.
Understanding how to find and utilize your Apple podcast analytics gives you the tools you need to improve your podcast. Make more episodes that listeners enjoy enough to finish, more episodes that encourage people to subscribe, and your podcast will be better than ever.
When it comes to music streaming services, Spotify is one that comes immediately to mind. Originally created in 2006, Spotify has now gone on to bolster millions of paid subscribers at an increasing rate.
But what about other aspects of the business such as user demographics, usage, earnings and growth? Well, to cover these questions and more, we have curated this post of some Spotify statistics that are definitely worth knowing!
Spotify Statistics 2020 (All you need to know!)
2020 has already been an important year for Spotify, with the company finally making a profit since last year. It continues to grow in user numbers and is the most popular streaming site around the world.Below are some key current trends of the application, with more Spotify statistics on user demographics, revenues, and artist engagement in the rest of this article.
- Spotify is currently available in 79 countries worldwide.
- The content of Spotify is from independent artists and major record labels, and copyright holders are paid royalties for streamed music.
- There are over 49 million tracks available on the platform, though not all music can be found on Spotify, with artists choosing not to join, or not being accepted into the library.
- Spotify offers both desktop and mobile listening applications.
- On average, users listen to more than 40 unique artists each week.
- Close to 45% of Spotify users listen to music on the app on a daily basis.
- 1/3 of listening time is done on a Spotify-generated playlist.
- Another 1/3 of user listening is done on a user-generated playlist (either their own, or others).
- A stream of one Spotify song will pay the artist anywhere from $0.006 up to $0.0084.
- When it went public in April 2018, Spotify had a valuation of $26.5 billion that first day.
Spotify User Demographics
Since its creation, Spotify user numbers have only grown, and will continue to grow, as people shift from other streaming sources to the free and paid platforms.
- Currently, there are over 180 million people globally listening to music with this app.
- Around 52% of listeners will be using Spotify to listen to their music on their phone.
- 55% of Spotify users will link their Facebook accounts when signing up.
- In the time between 2017 and 2018, Spotify’s popularity grew very fast – from 138 million users to 180 million.
- More than 4 million songs have never been played by Spotify users.
- Spotify has more than 21 million Facebook followers, which is an increase of over 470% since 2013.
- The opening customer base across Europe in 2011 at its inception in this region in March was one million. By September, the number had already doubled.
- Each day, an average of 5 million playlists are created and edited on Spotify.
- There are over 3 billion user created playlists on the app.
Artists and Their Earnings on Spotify
This area has been a point of tension between artists and labels, and Spotify, with a lower rate of pay per listen than many other streaming applications available.
- The most streamed weekly track on Spotify as of the end of March 2019 was the song 7 Rings by Ariana Grande with a massive 31.27 million streams.
- As of 2019, the top five artists with the most listeners per month are Ariana Grande with 52.1 million, J Balvin with 49.5 million, Post Malone with 48.5 million, Khalid with 46.7 million and Marshmello with 45.4 million.
- As of 2019, the Spotify statistics state that the top five most followed artists are: Ed Sheeran with 42.2 million followers, Drake with 35.2 million, Rihanna with 30.8 million, Ariana Grande with 27.1 million and Justin Bieber with 27 million.
- Although Spotify, along with YouTube, has the largest number of audiences for music and video streaming, they are the lowest ranking platforms for artists to receive monetary compensation.
- The highest value streaming sites for artists to use and receive income from are Apple Music and Napster.
- In 2013 Spotify launched a website called ‘Spotify for Artists’ which explained revenue data and the business model.
- There is no fixed per-play rate for artists, instead, different factors are considered which affect the pay rate, such as the home country of each app user and the artist’s royalty rate that is individually set.
- Rights holders (musicians and labels) receive a payout per play that averages between $.006 and $.0084.
- 70% of Spotify’s revenue go to rights holders. Artists are then paid based on their individual artist agreement with the company.
- If an artist got an average of $0.00473 per play of their song – like composer Zoe Keating – they would need around 336,900 plays to earn close to $1,500.
Spotify Market Share
Though the platform hasn’t enjoyed profits for the bulk of its online presence since it was created, it is still the most popular streaming application on the market currently.
- In 2016, there was a new feature called ‘Sponsored Playlists’ introduced, which was an opportunity for brands to specify their desired audience so Spotify could match the marketer with certain music in playlists, this helped marketers who had ads on the platform to tailor their audience more effectively.
- For funding assistance, the ‘Founders Fund’ invested in Spotify in 2010 so that Sean Parker could assist in bringing in some of the biggest record labels in the music market.
- $100 million of funding was received in 2011 for the US launch. This made the company’s value rise to an estimated $1 billion at the time.
- When Spotify went live on the New York Stock Exchange in April 2018, it opened at a price of $165.90, which was more than 25 percent higher than it’s reference price of $132.
- Spotify accounts for 42% of the current streaming market in total.
Spotify Premium Versus Free Members
Your Top Songs 2018 Spotify
The incentive for people to pay for a premium Spotify account is the reduction of ads and limits that the free format gives listeners. There are still many people using free Spotify accounts, though paid subscriptions are becoming more popular.
- Spotify statistics state that in 2018, it had greater than 83 million subscribers that are using the paid format.
- There are currently 99 million people listening to the free ad-supported Spotify platform.
- A premium user on average uses up 2.40MB per minute of songs, which is equivalent to 115.2MB per hour.
- Spotify Premium is where you pay $9.99 per month to access songs with no interruptions by ads.
- Spotify Premium benefits include the function of no-shuffle mode, unlimited skips, no ads, free downloads up to 10,000 songs, offline listening and even the function of changing the speed rate of the track.
- Spotify Connect is also a Premium function to let you connect your music across different devices such as a listeners computer and mobile phone.
- There is also a subscription which is Spotify Premium for Family, which gives subscribers the chance to have up to five members of the same household to have their own personal accounts for $29.99 a month for five people. There are also options for two, three and four users with different pricing.
- Not only does the premium subscription remove advertisements and other restrictions, but it also gives the opportunity to increase the song’s bitrate to 320 kbit/s.
- Students that attend university in the United States have the opportunity to pay half-price for a Premium subscription, since 2014.
- Since 2017, students in over 33 other countries have enjoyed the same student discount.
Spotify Revenue and Growth
Spotify 2018 Annual Report
Interestingly, Spotify has only just started to see a positive monetary gain after 13 years of operating.
The revenue generated by Spotify is largely from selling premium subscriptions to people, as well as getting funds for displaying advertisement content on the free platform.
- The annual revenue last year in 2018 was $5.6 billion.
- As of February 2019, there has been 96 million paid subscribers in the world.
- Paid subscribers make up a little less than half of all Spotify’s user base.
- In the regions of Latin America, North America, and Europe, Spotify is one of the most successful music services.
- The Middle East and Asia see much fewer people subscribing, as the local competition of QQ music still dominates their markets.
- Around 20% of all Americans use Spotify on a monthly basis.
- In early 2017, there was a major expansion in it’s US operations, moving to ‘4 World Trade Center’ and creating 1,000 new jobs.
- By the end of 2019, it is predicted that there will be between 245 and 265 million active users in total per month.
- It is also expected that by the end of 2019, there will be 117 to 127 million subscribers to the paid accounts.
- After 13 years of running, Spotify has only just started to be profitable in Operating Income, Free Cash Flow and Net Income.
History of Spotify
Running now for 13 years, this music streaming platform started with success in user engagement from the beginning.
- First released in 2006, it was founded by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon.
- According to co-creator Daniel Ek, the name was founded by misheard words that were shouted by Martin Lorentzon. Later it was found that the word could be explained as a combination of the word ‘spot’ and ‘identify.’
- The main headquarters is in the founding country, Sweden, in the capital Stockholm.
- Spotify entered the US popular culture of music streaming in 2011.
- In 2016, it entered Indonesia and Japan.
- The Spotify app didn’t become available through the Windows App Store until 2017.
- Since 2015, there have been ongoing conflicts between Spotify and Apple with the competitiveness of these streaming applications. Throughout the years, there have been backlashes in how Apple has allowed Spotify to operate on IOS, as well as email campaigns run by Spotify urging apple music customers to switch.
Spotify Listening Stats
Lesser-Known Facts & Statistics About Spotify
Read on for some interesting facts and functions you may not have been aware of.
- It’s possible to recover old and deleted Spotify playlists from your account.
- Audiobooks can also be listened to on Spotify.
- ‘Artist Radio’ and ‘Song Radio’ are functions on the app that allow you to discover new music, which gets updated every minute.
- Spotify allows access to the lyrics of the songs on featured the app.
- There are many different advertising formats on Spotify, which vary in type and user engagement. These include Sponsored Playlists, Branded Moments, Homepage Takeovers, Advertiser Pages and more.
- The video streaming service Hulu has gone into partnership with Spotify to offer collections of movies and television shows.
- The bundle of Spotify and Hulu went from $12.99 to $9.99 a month recently, though according to a recent poll taken by The Hollywood Reporter and Morning Consult, most of the people who were surveyed reported that they would pay more than $10 for the Spotify Premium/Hulu Bundle.
- The student price for Spotify is $4.99 per month, where the Premium subscription is offered, as well as Showtime, which allows streaming access to popular shows.
Spotify Stats For Me
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Spotify 2018 Goals Campaign
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