Drake's Scorpion on Apple Music crushes Spotify in streaming

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in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV
Scorpion, Drake's fifth album, has smashed through his own single-day streaming record on Apple Music with more than 170 million streams in its first 24 hours. Spotify reportedly only reached about 76 percent of that traffic, despite claiming 120 million more users.




The numbers were reported by Micah Singleton of The Verge, based on figures supplied by Apple Music. Scorpion massively exceeded More Life, Drake's last album, which had held a record of 89.9 million first-day streams on the service.

Apple stated that Scorpion achieved both U.S. and global streaming records on Apple Music, and also represents the largest single-day streaming volume of any album on any streaming service.

Apple Music pulled out all the stops in promoting Scorpion, launching a website for fans to style their own photo into Scorpion album cover art and even giving Siri something to say when users asked about Drake's nicknames.

Apple Music is working overtime for

This is what happens when you ask Siri what Drake's nickname is pic.twitter.com/3fbRKvKAhA

-- Micah Singleton (@MicahSingleton)


Spotify's public charts reported streaming the same album over 132 million times in its first 24 hours, breaking its own single-day streaming record. The Verge noted that Spotify said its number "may end up being higher, when it finishes tallying the results."

Spotify sought to win the Scorpion streaming war by placing the sure-hit album on almost 30 of its popular playlists via a "global artist takeover," hitting 10 million streams per hour. Despite those efforts, Apple Music still passed Spotify up despite claiming far fewer subscribers.

Scorpion is expected to "easily shatter" the current single-week streaming record now held by Post Malone's Beerbongs & Bentleys, with 431 million streams.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 67
    Maybe Spotify users just have more discerning taste. I know I'm listening to Pusha T's Daytona instead.
    kkqd1337macxpress[Deleted User]
  • Reply 2 of 67
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    This is what it’s come to? We are using Drake now? Who cares who’s number 1 for streams, or whatever. The only metric that really matters is the quality, reliability, usability and feature set of a service. I couldn’t care less who has the most streams. I’m a user of Apple products, not a stockholder of them.
    avon b7tallest skil
  • Reply 3 of 67
    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger Posts: 1,583member
    ireland said:
    This is what it’s come to? We are using Drake now? Who cares who’s number 1 for streams, or whatever. The only metric that really matters is the quality, reliability, usability and feature set of a service. I couldn’t care less who has the most streams. I’m a user of Apple products, not a stockholder of them.
    That's a baffling comment. 

    It's very newsworthy that Apple Music has significantly fewer subscribers but is attracting far more actual demand for an artist who is leading in streaming globally. 

    There are lots of "quality" services that went out of business because nobody cared to use them.
    sully54Solilkruppracerhomie3StrangeDayslostkiwileavingthebiggpscooter63Muntzfastasleep
  • Reply 4 of 67
    kkqd1337kkqd1337 Posts: 423member
    If there is a worse way of judging how popular a streaming service is than using a Drake album then I would love to hear it.

    I use Spotify. I don’t know, want to know, or care who Drake is.
    gumashowirelandrotateleftbyte[Deleted User]
  • Reply 5 of 67
    kkqd1337 said:
    If there is a worse way of judging how popular a streaming service is than using a Drake album then I would love to hear it.

    I use Spotify. I don’t know, want to know, or care who Drake is.
    That's not the point. The article isn't asking you about your particular taste in music, who you stream and why you do or don't listen to 'Drake'. I don't listen to him either, but from what I can see in the popular culture around me many people do. That in and of itself doesn't matter. But the issue of why Spotify has so much lower numbers than a service with ( is it a third less subscribers?) is interesting. What it makes me think is that Spotify continues to BS their numbers. I worked for years for a very large electronics company that also owns media companies (and music labels) and online numbers for various types of games and interactions were known to be BS. They were often decided on (made up) in marketing meetings. So what I suspect is that Spotify is being used far less than we are being lead to believe.
    Dan_DilgerSoliracerhomie3StrangeDaysted13lostkiwiMuntzfastasleepradarthekatwatto_cobra
  • Reply 6 of 67
    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger Posts: 1,583member
    That's not the point. The article isn't asking you about your particular taste in music, who you stream and why you do or don't listen to 'Drake'. I don't listen to him either, but from what I can see in the popular culture around me many people do. That in and of itself doesn't matter. But the issue of why Spotify has so much lower numbers than a service with ( is it a third less subscribers?) is interesting. What it makes me think is that Spotify continues to BS their numbers. I worked for years for a very large electronics company that also owns media companies (and music labels) and online numbers for various types of games and interactions were known to be BS. They were often decided on (made up) in marketing meetings. So what I suspect is that Spotify is being used far less than we are being lead to believe.

    Thanks for the sanity Mark.

    As for kkqd1337 said:
    If there is a worse way of judging how popular a streaming service is than using a Drake album then I would love to hear it.

    I use Spotify. I don’t know, want to know, or care who Drake is.
    Spotify currently has Drake across the top of its charts as well. They were actively courting streams using Drake. Yet Apple Music trounced them in streams. It's not clear what your point could possibly be. Your opinion on music doesn't statistically matter here. These are many millions of streams to people who paid for streaming music services. 

    Apple Music is just doing a better job at reaching and serving demand. That's it.


    SolilostkiwiMuntzfastasleepradarthekatlamboaudi4watto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 67
    xbitxbit Posts: 390member

    Apple Music is just doing a better job at reaching and serving demand. That's it.
    Or, more likely, Apple Music’s subscription base has a higher percentage of North American listeners. North American listeners are more likely to want to listen to North American artists such as Drake.
    nubusIreneWireland[Deleted User]
  • Reply 8 of 67
    xbit said:

    Apple Music is just doing a better job at reaching and serving demand. That's it.
    Or, more likely, Apple Music’s subscription base has a higher percentage of North American listeners. North American listeners are more likely to want to listen to North American artists such as Drake.
    You seem to have missed this part of the article:
    Apple stated that Scorpion achieved both U.S. and global streaming records on Apple Music...
    So, it was not just in North America.
    Rayz2016lostkiwipscooter63Muntzfastasleeplamboaudi4watto_cobra
  • Reply 9 of 67
    But....but....but.......Spotify has more users and higher market share.
    racerhomie3lostkiwiMuntzwatto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 67
    maestro64maestro64 Posts: 5,043member
    These metrics does not mean people were actually listening. I stream music in my house on the weekends and I can tell you many times we are not listening to what is playing. Also Spotify stated that they  put the song in their most popular play lists it does not mean people wanted to hear the song or were even listening.

    The real metric would be request to hear the song. The current metric is push verses a pull, a pull for content has more meaning.
    irelandradarthekat
  • Reply 11 of 67
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,712member
    Who is Drake?  
    irelandrotateleftbytelamboaudi4rmfpdx[Deleted User]
  • Reply 12 of 67
    matrix077matrix077 Posts: 868member
    kkqd1337 said:
    If there is a worse way of judging how popular a streaming service is than using a Drake album then I would love to hear it.

    I use Spotify. I don’t know, want to know, or care who Drake is.
    I don’t know, want to know, or care who Drake is. I’m using Apple Music, never steam Drake song once.

    But that’s not the point of all of these. The point is, I guess, if there’s anyone who’s always boast and is boasting about their subscription number it’s Spotify not Apple Music. And then there’s rarely evidence to back up those claims.
    All I know is in my country I can pay ¢30 for a whole 3 months of Spotify. No wonder their number looks good but rarely has anything to show for. 
    lostkiwiradarthekatlamboaudi4watto_cobra
  • Reply 13 of 67
    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger Posts: 1,583member
    maestro64 said:
    These metrics does not mean people were actually listening. I stream music in my house on the weekends and I can tell you many times we are not listening to what is playing. Also Spotify stated that they  put the song in their most popular play lists it does not mean people wanted to hear the song or were even listening.

    The real metric would be request to hear the song. The current metric is push verses a pull, a pull for content has more meaning.
    Both Apple Music and Spotify pay royalties per stream, so tens of millions of streams per day is not just blowing out of speakers on autopilot.

    All this thought put into trying to explain why the leading artist globally is not really worthy of mention or isn't really popular sounds a lot like people who can't grasp that the world outside of them is not anything like what they imagine it to be.

    Regardless, Apple Music doesn't have more reasons to be playing music that nobody is listening to compared to Spotify. It has fewer. Spotify was configured and regularly playing on home speakers like Sonos long before HomePod was available. And HomePod just went on sale. So the biggest audience of people listening passively to any popular artist should be on Spotify.

    And yet Apple Music is still where most of the traffic driving the world's highest requested volume of streams is coming from.
    edited July 2018 pscooter63Muntzfastasleepradarthekatwatto_cobra
  • Reply 14 of 67
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    MacPro said:
    Who is Drake?  
    No one knows.
    ireland
  • Reply 15 of 67
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 7,593member
    ireland said:
    This is what it’s come to? We are using Drake now? Who cares who’s number 1 for streams, or whatever. The only metric that really matters is the quality, reliability, usability and feature set of a service. I couldn’t care less who has the most streams. I’m a user of Apple products, not a stockholder of them.
    That's a baffling comment. 

    It's very newsworthy that Apple Music has significantly fewer subscribers but is attracting far more actual demand for an artist who is leading in streaming globally. 

    There are lots of "quality" services that went out of business because nobody cared to use them.
    I think Ireland's comment was spot on.

    I don't see anything baffling in it.

    Shouldn't success in this market be judged on subscribers, revenues, total streams, the amount of people who listened to a stream etc rather than the people who listened to one particular record?

    Is this like the TV where people can switch on for one particular show and then turn off? I get the idea that it isn't, as playlists are mentioned so isn't it correct to assume that if people were not listening to Drake, they were listening to something else? The numbers might be good for Drake but, the service? 

    Of course, I'm not part of the streaming generation so maybe I'm missing something obvious but if anything, I find the reply baffling, not the original comment.
    ireland[Deleted User]
  • Reply 16 of 67
    MacPro said:
    Who is Drake?  
    No one knows.
    It looks like millions of people know who he is. 
    Rayz2016pscooter63Muntzfastasleep
  • Reply 17 of 67
    CheeseFreezeCheeseFreeze Posts: 1,246member
    Shit ‘music’ for a generation out of touch with music as an art form.
    irelandrotateleftbyte
  • Reply 18 of 67
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    avon b7 said:
    ireland said:
    This is what it’s come to? We are using Drake now? Who cares who’s number 1 for streams, or whatever. The only metric that really matters is the quality, reliability, usability and feature set of a service. I couldn’t care less who has the most streams. I’m a user of Apple products, not a stockholder of them.
    That's a baffling comment. 

    It's very newsworthy that Apple Music has significantly fewer subscribers but is attracting far more actual demand for an artist who is leading in streaming globally. 

    There are lots of "quality" services that went out of business because nobody cared to use them.
    I think Ireland's comment was spot on.

    I don't see anything baffling in it.

    Shouldn't success in this market be judged on subscribers, revenues, total streams, the amount of people who listened to a stream etc rather than the people who listened to one particular record?

    Is this like the TV where people can switch on for one particular show and then turn off? I get the idea that it isn't, as playlists are mentioned so isn't it correct to assume that if people were not listening to Drake, they were listening to something else? The numbers might be good for Drake but, the service? 

    Of course, I'm not part of the streaming generation so maybe I'm missing something obvious but if anything, I find the reply baffling, not the original comment.
    Actually, I think you may have missed @corrections point, which is very significant for the future of both platforms. Whether you like him or not, Drake is one of the most significant artists being streamed today, and so he's a significant benchmark, though of course, not the only one.

    The article points out that these are 
    initial figures, and that Spotify may well pull ahead, which I would expect since it has more subscriber numbers. The other point is that Apple may have more subscribers who like Drake, though I don't think this would cause such a massive difference in the numbers.

    Anyway, what is significant is that Apple pulled the largest streaming figures for his album despite having the smaller subscriber base. 

    That is very weird considering that streaming is a pretty generic service. But it's less weird when you consider other Apple's more-for-less successes, such as raking in all the profits in the mobile hardware/software markets despite having the smaller user base.

    What did Apple Music do that got more people to actually stream the album on its release day? Why didn't Drake's following on Spotify engage as much? These are the questions Spotify will be asking itself.

    Apple has the smaller subscriber base, but they have the more engaged subscriber base? Why is this? Is it ease of use of the Apple Music? (Can't be, because according to experts around here, Apple Music is unusable because Apple, in its infinite stupidity, has chosen to make it part of iTunes instead of a separate app). Is it because they are better at targeting likely Drake fans inside their smaller user base? Is it because Apple can bring to bear a massively connected ecosystem (artists microsites, Apple Music, Siri) to get the word out faster and more effectively?

    These are important questions that Spotify will be looking into, because if they don't then Apple could trail behind in subscriber numbers forever, and still suck all the profits out of the streaming industry.
    edited July 2018 Muntzwatto_cobra
  • Reply 19 of 67
    bitmodbitmod Posts: 267member

    Apple Music is just doing a better job at reaching and serving demand. That's it.


    barf
    ireland[Deleted User]
  • Reply 20 of 67
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 7,593member
    Rayz2016 said:
    avon b7 said:
    ireland said:
    This is what it’s come to? We are using Drake now? Who cares who’s number 1 for streams, or whatever. The only metric that really matters is the quality, reliability, usability and feature set of a service. I couldn’t care less who has the most streams. I’m a user of Apple products, not a stockholder of them.
    That's a baffling comment. 

    It's very newsworthy that Apple Music has significantly fewer subscribers but is attracting far more actual demand for an artist who is leading in streaming globally. 

    There are lots of "quality" services that went out of business because nobody cared to use them.
    I think Ireland's comment was spot on.

    I don't see anything baffling in it.

    Shouldn't success in this market be judged on subscribers, revenues, total streams, the amount of people who listened to a stream etc rather than the people who listened to one particular record?

    Is this like the TV where people can switch on for one particular show and then turn off? I get the idea that it isn't, as playlists are mentioned so isn't it correct to assume that if people were not listening to Drake, they were listening to something else? The numbers might be good for Drake but, the service? 

    Of course, I'm not part of the streaming generation so maybe I'm missing something obvious but if anything, I find the reply baffling, not the original comment.
    Actually, I think you may have missed @corrections point, which is very significant for the future of both platforms. Whether you like him or not, Drake is one of the most significant artists being streamed today, and so he's a significant benchmark, though of course, not the only one.

    The article points out that these are initial figures, and that Spotify may well pull ahead, which I would expect since it has more subscriber numbers. The other point is that Apple may have more subscribers who like Drake, though I don't think this would cause such a massive difference in the numbers.

    Anyway, what is significant is that Apple pulled the largest streaming figures for his album despite having the smaller subscriber base. 

    That is very weird considering that streaming is a pretty generic service. But it's less weird when you consider other Apple's more-for-less successes, such as raking in all the profits in the mobile hardware/software markets despite having the smaller user base.

    What did Apple Music do that got more people to actually stream the album on its release day? Why didn't Drake's following on Spotify engage as much? These are the questions Spotify will be asking itself.

    Apple has the smaller subscriber base, but they have the more engaged subscriber base? Why is this? Is it ease of use of the Apple Music? (Can't be, because according to experts around here, Apple Music is unusable because Apple, in its infinite stupidity, has chosen to make it part of iTunes instead of a separate app). Is it because they are better at targeting likely Drake fans inside their smaller user base? Is it because Apple can bring to bear a massively connected ecosystem (artists microsites, Apple Music, Siri) to get the word out faster and more effectively?

    These are important questions that Spotify will be looking into, because if they don't then Apple could trail behind in subscriber numbers forever, and still suck all the profits out of the streaming industry.
    It was corrections' point that baffled me.

    I am still lost as to why Drake is relevant in the bigger scheme of things. Obviously for Drake I can see why it is important but for the service?

    Weren't people simply listening to something else while others were listening to Drake? 

    Where is the difference for the service? Drake won't be releasing a new record every week.

    The only thing that I can see very clearly is that services need to convince subscribers to use them, then stick with them. I still can't see why one particular artist (available on both platforms) with one particular record is relevant in service terms.

    If Spotify had 1,000 users and Apple had 500, and 400 of Apple's users streamed Drake but only 200 of Spotify users did the same, why is that important?  I'm supposing that 100 Apple users and 800 Spotify users were simply listening to other stuff.

    There is mention of promoting the stream which could clearly have an influence on snapshot results but I imagine those 800 users who didn't stream Drake in the snapshot could also stream it at a later date which would affect aggregate streams (good for Drake I imagine), but for the service?


    ireland[Deleted User]
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