As SoundCloud launches its Go service in the UK and Ireland, this week’s final Chart looks at the competition it faces from Spotify in three key markets.
Currently, Spotify is still top dog with between 17-19% using it each month across the US, UK and Ireland. SoundCloud is some way behind, with a gap of over 10-points between the two services in the UK and Ireland. However, this does narrow to 7-percentage points in the US, where the service enjoys higher-than-average engagement among the key 16-24 demographic.
With no shortage of music services to choose from, SoundCloud’s challenge is now to find its unique point of difference from the likes of Apple Music, Tidal and Spotify, all of which have enjoyed high-profile coverage in recent months and which also offer perks such as offline listening and large libraries. After all, today’s internet users are happy being multi-networkers and multi-service users – maintaining free accounts across a number of social networks and streaming services – but asking them to pay for this privilege will require them to see some serious benefits.
