Streaming is winning the pandemic

The economy of the planet has been hit hard by the coronavirus but there are a few areas that have done very well. Companies that make PPE and hand sanitizer. Food delivery companies. Netflix. And streaming music services.

Spotify has released its Q2 results, reporting 8 million new subscribers in the last three months. That brings the total number if paying customers to 138 million. If you add in the free tier, the total number of active monthly users on Spotify is 299 million.

At the same time, though, Spotify has been hit by the same thing that’s hurting all media companies. Advertising revenue dropped by 21%, so while more people are listening, fewer clients are buying commercials. It’s the same issue we see in radio, TV, and print.

Meanwhile, Apple Music (which, of course, is backed up by a trillion-dollar company), is also doing well. Analysts say it’s bringing in at last US$5 billion annually from about 80 million subscribers–all paid, of course, because Apple doesn’t give anything away from free.

And then there’s YouTube. Parent company Alphabet says that the mobile app was installed 25 million times last month alone.

There’s a whole lot of streaming going on.