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Business News Digital
Rhapsody and Napster increase subscribers by 63% year-on-year
By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 9 April 2014
Rhapsody International has announced that its two streaming services, Rhapsody and Napster, saw subscribers increase by 63% in 2013. The company also added that the two services were together bringing in an average of 8000 new subscribers worldwide per day in the first quarter of 2014.
Announcing the stats, RI’s Chief Product Officer Paul Springer said: “Our goal is to inspire a daily music habit by putting the right music within arms’ reach for our subscribers. In less than one year, we’ve more than doubled our catalogue size, expanded from three to 32 countries and launched several wireless carrier partnerships across Europe and Latin America”.
The company also revealed that 80% of its users now access the services via mobile, with 60% only logging in via their phones. Germany, France and Brazil are its fastest growing markets, though in the UK, 79% of Napster subscribers are monthly active users. Globally, users listen to an average of ten hours of music per month, though in the US this increases to 35 hours per month.
Of course, by combining these stats, it doesn’t give a clear indication of how the Napster brand is doing in comparison to the always more successful American-based (mainly) Rhapsody. The company bought Napster in 2011, phasing out the name in the US, though keeping it on in the rest of the world, and rolling it out into new European markets.
Commenting on future direction, Springer said: “In the coming months, we will continue to expand into new markets, further investing in localised content and differentiated product offerings”.
