Revenue of music streaming in the Netherlands 2012-2020

In 2020, music streaming reached its highest ever revenue in the Netherlands, growing by roughly 15 percent when compared to 2019. The use of services like Spotify and YouTube Music made more revenue than physical sales (including both cd’s as well as vinyl) and digital downloads. The source mentions that music streaming had a market share of 80 percent in total revenue of the music industry in the Netherlands in 2020.

What are the most popular music streaming services of the Netherlands?

Exact user numbers for music streaming services are difficult to find in the Netherlands, as companies usually do not share this information in such detail. In the first quarter of 2018, though, Spotify was forecast to reach 6.2 million users (of which 3.3 million paid users), whereas Apple Music and Deezer had around 1.1 million and 800,000 users respectively. The Netherlands is considered a typical “Spotify-country” by industry experts, as can be seen, for example, from the high install base of the app in 2017 and 2018 as well as the increasing reach between 2014 and 2018.

The rise of podcasts

The numbers shown in this ranking only look at music streaming but do not take podcasts into account. This topic is relatively new in the Netherlands and not yet researched in-depth as compared to other countries. The type of smartphone used, however, seems to be an important driver for which podcast platforms Dutch consumers use the most. Apple Podcasts, for example, comes preinstalled on iOS devices, whereas Spotify and dedicated podcast apps like Overcast were mostly used by Android users (as Google’s operating system does not have native podcast support).