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Apple Music and other streaming services lost over 1M subscribers in the UK last quarter

Music streaming services, Apple Music included, lost over 1 million subscribers in the United Kingdom in this last quarter, according to a survey. Younger consumers are the ones dropping subscriptions the quickest.

A report by Kantar shows that over a million music subscriptions have been canceled in the United Kingdom, as people say they want to save money.

With inflation rising to 9% in the United Kingdom and further rises in the cost of living expected, the rising cancellation rates of music subscriptions is evidence that British households are starting to prioritise the spending of their disposable income. Over 1 million subscriptions were cancelled in the last quarter, which has also seen the highest level of consumers citing they want to save money as the reason they want to cancel their subscription, at 37%. This number is up 4% from the same period last year.

According to the survey, Apple Music had 12.4% new subscribers in the UK last quarter. 11.3% in Australia, 6.4% in Germany, and 9.7% in the US. Kantar shows that inflation and the cost of living rising made a “small drop in penetration of total individuals who have access to at least one music subscription.”

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At the start of 2020, 43.6% of people had a music streaming service subscription in the UK; now it’s 39.5%. One of the reasons for this drop in penetration is due to a decline in the number of young people with subscriptions, as 600K fewer under-35-year-olds have access to music subscriptions compared to the previous year.

Even with Apple Music and Spotify offering discounts for students, the number of them having a music streaming service went from 67% to 59%.

Some of the main reasons under 35s are planning to cancel and are over-indexing in compared to the over 35 group include not a wide enough selection of music, too many advertisements or having technical difficulties.

You can read the full report here. Did you cancel your Apple Music or other music streaming service for the reasons above? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

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