Compare the World's Biggest Streaming Services

31.05.2023 Comments Juri Kobayashi

the biggest streaming services in the world

A quick review of the numbers shows just how much potential the streaming services in China hold for independent artists. A much smaller artist to listener ratio can give artists an upper hand in the sea of music compared. Though it is known that Chinese streaming services don’t pay per stream like the established streaming services outside of China, the value is in the fanbase that can be gained.

Spotify has over 11 million artists and creators on their roster all contributing content. On average 1.8 million new tracks get uploaded to Spotify every month with now over 100 million tracks and quickly growing. It was recorded in 2022 that nearly 38 million tracks had never been played.

According to the ISRC records there are 158 million tracks available on streaming platforms. 67.1 million of all the tracks have been played less than 10 times.

With Spotify being saturated with content and creators, the funnel of chance for new artists to break the scene, known as “the cold start problem.” The way the algorithm works or any algorithm is that it needs data. If you are a new artist you have no history and no data for the algorithm to curate your music. So what are you going to do? You need to find ways to create a data history of your artist and music presence. And this means human influence. If you can’t do it yourself you need to find someone who can.

Private playlists owners of influential playlists can place your unknown track on their playlists giving you a foot in to start collecting data. You can also go in on it on your own and build a presence by yourself but this takes time, energy, content, knowhow and in the case with China: Access.

Take a look at the numbers and make an educated decision. Today is digital and if it is on the web it can be found. Make it easy for your listeners to find you!

Spotify

100 million songs

11 million artists and creators

515 registered listeners

210 million are premium subscribers

1,800,000 songs are uploaded on Spotify every month on average.

Netease

60 million songs

611,000 indie artists

800 million registered listeners

38 million premium subscribers

Tencent