The majority of Switzerland’s residents use YouTube to listen to music. But dedicated music streaming platforms like Spotify are gaining popularity. Nearly 70 percent of Swiss use at least one music streaming service (excluding Youtube video streaming). Those are some of the insights provided by the 2022 Swiss music streaming survey by moneyland.ch. In 2021, just 62 percent of survey participants said that they used at least one music streaming service.
Spotify remains the most popular dedicated music streaming service. Around half of the participants in this year’s survey said that they use the Swedish streaming platform. Next in line, by a wide margin, is Apple Music (18 percent). Although 70 percent of residents make use of Youtube’s video streaming platform, only around 13 percent use its dedicated Youtube Music Premium streaming service.
A number of smaller platforms have been able to grow their user bases considerably. The biggest winners include French streaming service Deezer, Scandinavian service Tidal, and US platform Napster. These services still have small market shares, but have been able to as much as double their Swiss user bases over the past year.
Table 1: Portion of residents which use music streaming services
| Streaming service |
2022 |
2021 |
| Youtube (general) |
73% |
62% |
| Spotify |
49% |
44% |
| Apple Music |
18% |
16% |
| Youtube Music Premium* |
13% |
|
| Soundcloud |
12% |
11% |
| Deezer |
9% |
6% |
| Amazon Music |
8% |
7% |
| Tidal |
5% |
3% |
| Napster |
4% |
2% |
| Others |
18% |
15% |
*The 2021 survey did not differentiate between Youtube and Youtube Music Premium.
Little willingness to pay for music streaming
The portion of Swiss who are prepared to pay money for music streaming is relatively small. Although the vast majority of residents say that they use one or several dedicated music platforms, only 34 percent of the population pays for this service. However, that is an increase from last year’s 30 percent.
Just 23 percent of participants say that they pay for Spotify. That means less than half of Spotify’s Swiss users pay for its services. The rest of them use Spotify for free or log in with a paying user’s account information. The portion of paying customers is even lower for other streaming platforms (see table 2). “The results indicate that the less popular a streaming service is, the more difficult it is for them to convert users into paying customers,” says moneyland.ch CEO Benjamin Manz.
Table 2: Portion of users who pay to stream
| Streaming service |
Users who are paying customers |
| Spotify |
46% |
| Apple Music |
42% |
| Youtube Music Premium |
29% |
| Amazon Music |
23% |
| Deezer |
15% |
| Napster |
14% |
| Tidal |
10% |
| Youtube (general) |
6% |
| Soundcloud |
6% |
| Others |
9% |
One notable insight is that Swiss are less likely to pay to stream music than to stream video. More than half of Swiss Netflix, Disney Plus, and Swisscom Blue Sport subscribers pay for their plans. “That may be due to the fact that conventional video streaming services do not offer free plans,” observes moneyland.ch telecom expert Ralf Beyeler. For music, on the other hand, there are numerous platforms which offer free streaming.
Residents who do pay to stream music generally only use one service provider. Only around 4 percent of survey participants say that they pay for more than one music streaming service. “In contrast to video streaming, there currently is not a whole lot of exclusive music and podcast content,” explains Beyeler. “So there are almost no reasons to pay for multiple subscriptions.”
Young adults love streaming
“Music streaming is most popular among young adults,” notes Benjamin Manz. That is especially visible in the user bases of big streaming services like Youtube, Spotify, and Apple Music. In many cases, residents between the ages of 18 and 25 are much more likely to use these services than those in other age groups (table 3), and are also more likely to pay for dedicated music streaming services.
When compared to Swiss between the ages of 50 and 74 years old, the differences are staggering: 77 percent of young adults use Spotify, compared to just 26 percent of adults in the oldest age group. In general, only a small portion of residents aged 50 to 74 stream music from the Internet.
Table 3: Music streaming by age group
| Streaming service |
18-25 |
26-49 |
50-74 |
| Youtube (general) |
82% |
80% |
59% |
| Spotify |
77% |
58% |
26% |
| Apple Music |
23% |
20% |
13% |
| Youtube Music Premium |
15% |
18% |
6% |
| Soundcloud |
21% |
15% |
3% |
| Deezer |
11% |
12% |
4% |
| Amazon Music |
7% |
10% |
6% |
| Tidal |
7% |
8% |
1% |
| Napster |
6% |
7% |
1% |
| Others |
15% |
19% |
17% |
Smaller platforms are more popular with men
A look at music streaming among men and women shows that Youtube and Spotify are both popular among women and men, but women are somewhat more likely to use them. All other streaming services are slightly more popular with men (see table 4). In Switzerland, Deezer, Amazon Music, Tidal, and Napster have around twice as many male users as female users.
Table 4: Streaming platform use by gender
| Streaming service |
Women |
Men |
| Youtube (general) |
74% |
71% |
| Spotify |
52% |
46% |
| Apple Music |
17% |
20% |
| Youtube Music Premium |
10% |
16% |
| Soundcloud |
10% |
13% |
| Deezer |
6% |
12% |
| Amazon Music |
6% |
11% |
| Tidal |
3% |
7% |
| Napster |
3% |
6% |
| Others |
15% |
20% |
Spotify less popular among French-speaking Swiss
Spotify is used by 44 percent of residents in French-speaking Switzerland, compared to a higher 51 percent in German-speaking regions. Apple Music, on the other hand, is somewhat more popular in the Romandie, with 20 percent of French-speaking Swiss using it, compared to 17 percent of residents on the other side of the proverbial Röstigraben. “But even in western Switzerland, Apple Music would have to double its users in order to outdo Spotify in terms of popularity,” observes telecom expert Ralf Beyeler.
Readiness to pay – particularly for Spotify, but also for other music streaming services – is somewhat lower in French-speaking Switzerland.
Table 5: Streaming platform use by linguistic region
| Streaming service |
German-speaking regions |
French-speaking regions |
| Youtube (general) |
72% |
73% |
| Spotify |
51% |
44% |
| Apple Music |
17% |
20% |
| Youtube Music Premium |
14% |
11% |
| Soundcloud |
12% |
11% |
| Deezer |
8% |
12% |
| Amazon Music |
9% |
8% |
| Tidal |
5% |
5% |
| Napster |
5% |
4% |
| Others |
18% |
17% |
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