The lockdown has changed our behaviour. We’re using our smartphones more, downloading more and streaming more. Two recent news stories show this. First, the fact that mobile game installs in India have now topped 7 billion in just 9 months and second, the massive increase in Spotify subscribers.
Spotify paid subscribers have risen by a massive 27% to 144 million in the third quarter of 2020, according to data research by Comprar Acciones. In addition, Spotify saw active monthly users soar by 29% year-on-year to a massive 320 million. This meant that their revenue rose by 15% year-on-year to £1.59bn in Q3 of 2020. In addition, advertising revenue grew by 9% year-on-year and 41% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) to £164.99m.
Despite the lockdown helping to boost the Spotify user numbers and revenue, they’re actually losing money – some £90.07m loss in the third quarter. Confusingly, this is down from a £214.93 profit in the same period a year ago. Why did this happen? Well, in part it was due to Spotify offering discounted plans to attract those new customers that are now coming on board. It’s meant that the actual revenue per user fell by 10% year-on-year.
Other reasons for the increase in users (apart from more people being at home) include a Russian launch and 12 additional European markets. Spotify continues to be the biggest in terms of music streaming, with a 35% share. Apple Music has a 19% share and Amazon Music is sitting on a 15% slice.
The days of buying music aren’t quite behind us yet though. Streaming music sales made up 56% of all sales in the global music industry last year.
Streaming music customers have grown by 30% to 400 million in the first quarter of 2020.
Meanwhile the enforced lockdown in India has seen the country consume 17% of global downloads – the highest number of mobile game installs globally. This has pushed the market value of India’s gaming industry as a whole to £0.90 billion in the 2020 fiscal year. This is now projected to rise to £1 billion next year and £1.42 billion in 2022.
This increase in downloads will, according to Statista, mean that 40,000 new job opportunities will be created by 2022. By then, the value of its mobile gaming market will be £303.19 million.
A study by Bernstein estimates that there has been a 30% to 40% increase in the number of daily active gamers since the start of the pandemic. Statista projects that by 2022, the number of mobile gamers will reach 370 million, up from 201 million in 2016. Overall, there will be 510 million online gamers in India by 2022. Games range from adventure, arcade, sports betting using bitcoin, strategy, gambling, casual, puzzle, trivia, strategy and role playing games.
The US was second globally in terms of the number of mobile game installs during Q1 to Q3 2020. With 4.2 billion downloads, it accounted for 9.8% of the global total. Brazil came in third with 3.5 billion downloads, an 8% share.
Globally, the number of mobile game downloads from Q1 to Q3 2020 rose by 36.9% to 42.7 billion. Google Play Store downloads increased by 42.8% year-on-year while on the App Store, there was an increase of 15.9% year-on-year.