Streaming music is big business these days, which should be clear with the amount of available services consumers have for options. All the currently existing top contenders in the subscription-based streaming music services were just joined by another player, Apple’s recently announced Apple Music which they unveiled this morning at the WWDC15 keynote speech, essentially setting iOS users (and Android users later this Fall) up for their very own Apple-branded streaming music service and app, which could potentially replace their other options. Quite possibly the most popular music service on iOS prior to news of Apple Music is Spotify. It carries legions of loyal users with plenty to offer them to keep them happy.
While many iOS and Android users may be happy with Spotify currently, once Apple Music launches that may not be the case. There is potential for Spotify to lose some significant user base now that Apple is trying to step in on some of its territory. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek seems to realize this, as he expresses his feelings about the it over Twitter with a simple “Oh Ok.” tweet in response to the Apple Music announcement this morning. Judging by the wording, or in this case lack there of, Spotify may not actually be too worried about Apple Music or what it’s going to offer.
In fact, Daniel Ek seems to be strangely confident about Spotify having to go up against Apple Music at the end of this month when it gets released to iOS users. As noted though, Ek later deleted his tweet which may suggest that he actually realizes Spotify is going to have some stiff competition soon. Whatever the case may be, whether Spotify and Ek are worried about Apple Music or not, the reality is that Apple has a way of enticing people to at least check out their products or offerings. Whether they stick with them is less certain, but getting people to take notice may have been the hard part and with that potentially out of the way, Apple Music could very well steal some of Spotify’s users, and not just for the short term.