Over the past month or so, SoundCloud received a $70 million dollar investment from Twitter and rolled out a paid service called “SoundCloud Go.” From the looks of it, the company is preparing to better compete in a crowded music streaming space.
As to its chances, critics are less than bullish.
Though SoundCloud’s free service boasts a music library of 125 million songs, seemingly dwarfing competitors like Shazam, Pandora and Spotify, the vast majority are user-submitted originals. When it comes to carrying big name, big label artists—the key attraction of its paid service—SoundCloud Go adds just 15 million songs, which is only about half of its competitors’ current offerings.
A quick look those odds, and it would be easy to conclude SoundCloud doesn’t stand much of a chance. Tech Times thinks as much. They wrote SoundCloud Go was a “no go” (clever). But they would be wrong.
Monthly Active Users (MAU)
Of the most popular third-party music streaming apps[1], Spotify and Pandora accounted for 71 percent of global monthly active users (MAU) in Q2. In the U.S., the two apps captured 81 percent.
Global MAU Q2 2016
U.S. MAU Q2 2016
And although that’s still an overwhelming majority of monthly users, the numbers are down from this time last year. In Q2 of 2015, Spotfiy and Pandora held 73 percent of global MAU and 83 percent of U.S.
Global MAU Q2 2015
U.S. MAU Q2 2015
The only one to make up ground? SoundCloud.
Monetization
MAU is a nice barometer of market share, but ultimately it doesn’t mean much if users aren’t spending. Currently, the revenue split between Spotify and Pandora is 80/20, respectively, and even with that huge advantage, Spotify is hemorrhaging money and artists. It’s not sustainable.
Conversely, without the bloated overhead of the other major streaming apps, SoundCloud stands to monetize and, you know, actually turn a profit.
Downloads
When it comes to download volumes, the situation worsens for the top streaming apps. Over the past year, rates have unilaterally fallen.
Global Download Rates Y-o-Y
It’s much of the same story in the U.S.—expect for the fact that SoundCloud was the only streaming to actually increase downloads in the U.S.
U.S. Download Rates Y-o-Y
Takeaways
If we’re betting on future growth, SoundCloud is the right call. They’re the only music-streaming app to grow in both global MAU and U.S. downloads year-over-year, and with competitors like Spotify and Pandora losing ground and money, SoundCloud has a strange chance to swallow market share.
[1] Excluding the pre-loaded Apple Music