Spotify has over 100m paying subscribers

"More than 100 million users worldwide now pay for Spotify Premium, the company has announced. Spotify reached the milestone by growing paid subscribers by 32-percent year-on-year. Including free subscribers, Spotify now has a total of 217 million monthly active users worldwide. That includes two million Indian users who joined after the company launched its service there in February.
Globally, the numbers put Spotify well ahead of Apple Music, its closest competitor, who reportedly had 50 million paid users worldwide at the beginning of April. However, in the US Apple’s music streaming service in winning, according to the Wall Street Journal, with 28 million subscribers compared to Spotify’s 26 million."
Source:  The Verge, 29th April 2019

Earlier - 70m announced in January 2018
Earlier - 60m in July 2017
Earlier - 50m in March 2017
Earlier - 37m (estimated) in July 2016

A Global Digital Snapshot April 2019

Digital 2019 Q2 Global Digital Statshot (April 2019) v02 from DataReportal

Over 400,000 homes 'cut the cord' in the UK in 2018

"Declining pay-TV subscriptions in the UK suggest that cord-cutting, which is well established in the US, is now beginning to affect the European market, according to findings from research firm Strategy Analytics.
Its report, European Pay TV Index, found that the UK saw a net decline in pay-TV households of 424,000 in 2018, the largest decline of any European country. Other countries with falling subscriptions include Denmark, Switzerland and Germany, although the rates of decline are less significant."
Source:  Advanced Television, 26th April 2019

Mobile accounted for 51% of UK digital ad spend in 2018

"IAB UK, the trade association for digital advertising, has today announced the results of the latest IAB UK and PwC Digital Adspend study, which reveals UK advertisers spent £13.44billion on digital advertising in 2018.
The total ad spend figure is a 15 percent year-on-year increase and demonstrates continued confidence in the power of digital advertising.
For the first time ever, ad spend on smartphones has exceeded desktop accounting for 51 percent of the total spend, up from 45 percent in 2017. This is a year-on-year increase of £1.65bn.
These latest figures show that advertising spend now better reflects consumer behaviour, with recent UKOM audience data showing that people spend two thirds of their online time on smartphone1.
Beyond mobile, an additional driver of growth continues to be video, which accounts for 44 percent of the total display market. For the second year running, outstream (which includes social in-feed video) has exceeded pre-roll video2, accounting for 57 percent of all video advertising."
Source:  Press release from IAB UK, using data from the IAB & PwC, 24th April 2019

Apple Music has more paid subscribers than Spotify in the US

"Apple Music has reportedly surpassed Spotify in terms of paid subscribers in the US, holding around 2m more paying users. According to the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, Apple Music had 28m paid subscribers at the end of February compared to Spotify’s 26m.
Spotify is said to be adding subscribers at a monthly growth rate of between 1.5 and two per cent in the US, while Apple Music is growing at between 2.6 and three per cent.
Though Apple Music has captured the lead in paid subscribers, Spotify still more overall users than Apple in the US, due to offering a free, ad-supported tier in addition to its premium tier.
It’s also reported that Apple Music is also outpacing Spotify’s paid subscriber growth globally – with Apple growing at a rate of between 2.4 and 2.8 per cent versus Spotify’s between two and 2.3 per cent."

Source:  Mobile Marketing, 8th April 2019

There are 25m businesses on Instagram; half don't have a website

"We have 25 million businesses on the platform, half of whom don’t list a website. So Instagram is their digital platform. And so they’re already engaging with their customers in Feed and in Stories and through Direct (messaging). And so being able to turn that discovery and consideration mechanism into an actual purchase is something that I think is great for businesses, great for people, and truly could be good for our business."
Source:  Interview with Vishal Shah, Instagram's Head of Product, on Chaddar's Medium blog, 21st March 2019

There were 495 scripted series on TV in the US in 2018, one third from streaming services

"The number of scripted TV series on offer in the US edged up to 495 in 2018, according to estimates from FX Networks, with a big increase at streaming services offsetting declines at basic cable and broadcast networks.
The company’s annual survey of scripted series – everything from long-running hits like Game Of Thrones to new additions like Homecoming and Killing Eve – shows the overall total rising from 487 to 495, a little short of the 500 that FX Networks CEO John Landgraf had predicted at the start of 2018.
Streaming services, however, boosted their scripted offerings from 117 in 2017 to 160 this year, continuing a trend that has seen the streaming total escalate 385% since 2014.
Broadcast networks offered 146 scripted series this year, down from 153 last year, and pay cable networks expanded from 42 to 45, continuing a 32% increase over the past four years. The volume on basic cable networks dropped from 175 to 144.
Streamers now offer 32% of all the scripted series available to US viewers, according to the FX estimates, up from 24% last year and only 8% in 2014. Pay cable networks remained at 9%, while basic cable networks dropped from 36% to 29%."

Source:  Screen Daily, 13th December 2019

National Geographic is the first brand to get to 100m followers on Instagram

"National Geographic ventured into uncharted territory last week, this time on Instagram, where it became the first brand to top 100 million followers. But the publisher’s success is more than organic. Its revenue from social advertising was up 80 percent in 2018 compared with the previous year."
Source:  AdWeek, 19th February 2019

Yelp's US restaurant booking service managed 5.6m diners in Valentine's week 2019

""Yelp Inc. (NYSE:YELP), the company that connects people with great local businesses, today announced strong growth and momentum in its restaurant services offerings, with a record-setting Valentine's Day week in which Yelp’s reservation and waitlist software handled 5.6 million diners. This comes on the heels of the company closing out 2018 by managing 22 million diners in December, driven in part by rapid growth in diners booking directly through the Yelp app, which tripled year over year in the fourth quarter compared to Q4 2017."

Source:  Press release from Yelp, 26th February 2019

Note - this is number of diners, not number of bookings; a table for four is four, not one.  Still, big numbers!

The WWE Channel has 40m subscribers on YouTube

"WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) has hit 40 million subscribers to its official YouTube channel, and exceeded 30 billion overall views, as they continue to expand and grow on the video streaming platform.
The WWE Youtube channel is ranked 7th (as of end of Jan 2019) on the channels with the most subscribers, above the likes of music artists Ed Sheeran and Eminem."

Source:  Advanced Television, 28th February 2019

Music streaming revenues have overtaken physical sales in the UK

"New digital services are turning the UK into a country of subscribers rather than entertainment buyers as music follows video and games to become a majority ‘rental’ market for the first time, according to figures revealed in the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) Yearbook, published today (March 5).
Revenues for paid-for music subscription services rose 38% in 2018 to £829m with the result that subscription now accounts for 62% of total recorded music revenues. Ownership formats like CDs, vinyl LPs and downloads now only account for 38% of revenues.
Key to the growth in people paying for access to music rather than ownership in 2018 was the work of streaming retailers like Spotify, YouTube and Deezer who continued to convert their free-tier users into paying subscribers, while Amazon introduced many more of its customers to its music streaming service - not least through the success of the Amazon Echo smart speaker.
Games first became a majority access rather than ownership market in 2016.  Video followed suit in 2017 with the rise of Netflix, Amazon Prime and Sky’s NOW TV.  This Subscription-Video-On-Demand (SVOD) sector grew by 31% in 2018 and is now responsible for over 55% of total video revenues.
Now music has joined the party to become a majority rental market."

Source:  Entertainment Retailers Association, 5th March 2019

Also - US stats here

The number of homes with only one paid video subscription is falling

"The number of people with more than one online streaming service is continuing to grow according to the latest consumer research from Ampere Analysis. In a survey of 33,000 Internet users across 16 countries, more than half (50 per cent) of respondents in 13 of those countries had at least one SVoD service, while in 10 of the 16 markets, more than half of SVoD homes were SVoD Stackers – those taking more than one service.  As more major players – such as Disney – enter the SVoD marketplace in 2019 and beyond, the billion-dollar question is, just how many services will consumers pay for?
The Facts
Netflix continues to be the dominant service, leading in almost all countries surveyed in terms of the number of subscribers
Amazon Prime only beats Netflix adoption levels in Japan and Germany – and even here, Netflix is the second choice
This is not just a marketplace where just two global SVoD giants battle for supremacy. Local players perform well in Sweden, Turkey and the Netherlands, and elsewhere, others are eyeing the market opportunity."

Source:  Advanced Television, 21st February 2019