Which way, USA? Latest DMN Pro data shows a problematic slide in stateside Spotify subscribers (Photo: GDJ)
Spotify came out swinging in its latest quarterly financial call, thanks to a 12% year-over-year global premium subscriber bump. But how many of those subscribers are coming from outside of ARPU-rich regions like North America and Western Europe?
Yes, this is the nagging ‘subscriber plateau’ dogging the music industry, though ‘decline’ may be the new ‘flat’ — at least in markets like the United States.
Just last week, DMN Pro revealed a noticeable decline of roughly 5% in US-based subscribers, particularly during the first two months of 2025, citing leaked data from sources at a major music conglomerate.
Admittedly, that doesn’t amount to a full quarter, and month-to-month bumps aren’t unusual. But perhaps there’s a reason why Spotify has specifically decided against increasing prices in the US — at least according to the Financial Times. That follows a slip by Believe pointing to a pullback by Spotify and other DSPs on an aggressive price increase schedule.
Is the industry finally hitting the edge of consumer price sensitivity, particularly in the US?
Calling the data ‘incorrect,’ Spotify Global Head of Communications Chris Macowski pointed DMN to ‘Y/Y and Q/Q growth across all regions’ in Q1, while pointing to year-over-year data in Spotify’s investor presentation deck. Hoping to fill in the blanks, we asked specifically about US subscriber stats in 2025 — but got ghosted.
Perhaps most concerning: the early-2025 declines in the US are also happening in the core number of accounts, which strips out multiple users (for example, 6 subscribers in a group Family account). That raises another inconvenient question: how many people are actually logging in to these group accounts? Our best estimates still show a decline, with a clear drop in the actual number of paid US-based accounts.
The United States remains the top music industry market, according to the IFPI, and one of the most lucrative on the ARPU scale. Meanwhile, more Q1 data is coming in — we’ll keep you posted.
Half a world away, Tencent Music is going gangbusters with super-premium offerings, though Spotify looks stuck at the starting blocks after years of teasing their upgraded tier(s). During the aforementioned Q1 call, Ek whipping up an admirable word salad on the topic, with once-promising add-ons like high-fidelity audio and exclusive tickets suddenly absent from the discussion.
“But for the near term, the way to think about it for Spotify is, we’re not dependent on that for growth, but we want to make it happen. … [F]or the superfan [subscription tier], we do need the partners to come to the table and be part of this trip,” Ek said without offering any concrete plans or releases ahead.
On that front, DMN is hearing reports of continued fragmentation, with mega-players like Live Nation disinterested in gifting jewels like pre-release concert tickets — at least without a serious bag of cash. Separately, UMG is marching forward with its own superfan-focused artist pages, as are notable upstarts like Dave Cool-helmed MySeat Media, which just facilitated an impressive G Herbo superfan app loaded with exclusive cuts.
Other artists are likely to roll their own — superfan apps, that is — but how much will that detract from streaming giants like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music, which now hog 99% of the streaming subscriber marketshare in some territories?
While we’re on the topic of non-standard, premium streaming apps: which mega-festival is cooking up a huge genre-focused streaming app, loaded with live performance exclusives for its heavy-spending attendees? This one’s gonna be big — stay tuned!
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Spotify Says Its US Subscriber Levels Are Just Fine, Thank You — Though Latest Data Shows Early-2025 Declines – Digital Music News
