Apple's iTunes Radio May Soon Be The Second Most-Popular US Music Streaming Service
Six months after its release, iTunes Radio is already the third most-popular music streaming service in the United States – and what’s more, it looks set to take the No. 2 position.
The news was presented in research recently undertaken by Edison (via Fortune), which indicates that while Pandora is maintaining a strong lead in the United States, iTunes Radio has been edging ahead of competitors to take the No. 3 spot. In particular, Apple’s free music streaming service beat Spotify to the third-place position by just two percentage points, holding onto an eight percent share of the U.S. market (compared with Spotify’s six percent share).
Plus, only one percentage point is stopping iTunes Radio from taking the second-place position, which is presently occupied by iHeartRadio.
Given that iTunes Radio launched a mere half a year ago, this is impressive stuff – though the service’s growth is being helped in no small way by the fact that it has been built right into U.S. iOS devices from iOS 7 onwards.
Pandora’s 31 percent share of the U.S. market means iTunes Radio is still a long way off snatching the first-place position. Back in November we explained how Pandora had seen a surprising increase in listeners following iTunes Radio’s launch, however the service dropped its 40-hour account limits and launched a revamped iOS app before Apple’s rival service appeared. It seems this strategy has worked, because Pandora is still a long way out in front.
On the other hand, iHeartRadio seems to be in Apple’s crosshair, and we wouldn’t be at all surprised if iTunes Radio overtakes the service in the coming months. We’ll keep you updated with further information as we receive it.
In the meantime, see: Apple May Pull The iPhone 5c, But Not Its Design, The Final Frontier Awaits In Unity Games’ Upcoming Space Noir, and Instagram’s iOS Users Can Now Strengthen Or Soften The Lux Effect.
