Apple Music might have spoiled Spotify’s hope for a big showing with performer The Weeknd.
The wildly popular artist’s My Dear Melancholy EP tallied more than 26 million streams during its first day on Apple Music, the iPhone maker confirmed to The Verge on Tuesday. The EP’s top single, Call Out My Name, generated 6 million streams during the first 24 hours. That easily topped the nearly 3.5 million streams the single captured on Spotify during the same period, The Weeknd’s record company Republic Records told The Verge.
Spotify is going public on Tuesday, earning the company even more attention and further cementing it as one of the most important competitors in the streaming music market.
Apple and Spotify are in a bitter battle over dominance in the streaming music market. So far, at least, Spotify has been winning that battle with more than 157 million active users and 71 million subscribers. At last count, Apple Music has 36 million paid subscribers.
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That differential has not been lost on Apple or Spotify. And the companies are actively targeting artists and record labels in hopes of getting exclusives that can give their services an edge.
If the data The Verge collected is accurate (Apple and Spotify did not immediately responded to a Coins2Day request for confirmation), it would appear that an exclusive might not have mattered in this case.
The Weeknd gave Spotify two music videos it could stream through its service that he didn’t provide to Apple Music. He also used his Instagram account over the weekend to point users to Spotify’s streaming service instead of Apple Music’s.
