The contemporary music industry is obsessed with average revenue per user or ARPU. It is one of the major units that contribute to the global streaming industry in terms of collective revenue obtained from users. However, there is also a positive impetus in all this as the number of global music subscribers across different audio-sharing platforms is at an all-time high and also constantly increasing exponentially. Just in 2020, the year of the pandemic, there were over 100 million new subscribers across different platforms pushing the total number to 467 million. In comparison to the year 2019 which garnered only 83 million new subscribers, this year seems to be blossoming so far. Subsequently, there were 195 million new subscribers just in Q1 2021 which has now led the total number to stand at 487 million. There has been a decline in ARPU by as much as 9% in the year 2020, but there has been an increased number of paid subscribers. Subscriber revenue is yet to pick up its pace but the global subscriber base is growing faster than ever before in history.
Spotify rules the list around the globe with over 27 million new subscribers just between Q1 2020 and Q1 2021, surpassing any other streaming service. It also lost two market share points as the overall growth rate declined in comparison to some of the other leading competitors. In 2020, Google garnered the fastest-growing pace with 60% growth. Tencent took the second position with 40% while Amazon and Apple Music grew by 27% and 12% respectively.
YouTube Music by Google has established its niche as one of the most dynamic and popular of them all for several years now. It had a huge market among not just new and upcoming artists but also established ones along with a handsome audience stream from around the world. Some people are also of the opinion that YouTube Music is the most accessed among Gen Z and occupies a significance that Spotify once held for the millennial about ten years ago.
The music market has constantly grown over the years changing its course from physical to digital subscriptions with numerous streaming sites cropping up one after the other. The online music market is also emerging and growing exponentially as it has successful consumers in the Asia Pacific Region, Latin America, and the rest of the world. These subscriptions account for about a whopping 60% growth just in the year 2020 alone. This is the reason behind the decline of global ARPU but there has always been a steady increase in the number of subscribers especially in the past one-and-a-half years between 2020 and 2021. Various services offer an extensive library of online music. With more such platforms, subscribers are also increasing significantly and adding to the global resurgence of the online music industry. With Tencent standing at 61 million, NetEase from China also garnered a whopping 18 million subscribed users just in Q1 2020. On the other hand, Yandex, a Russian platform also garnered 8 million subscribers during that time.
The forecast for global music only shows flying colors. The pandemic contributes largely to this increase in subscribers. As the whole world moves more towards digitalization, online music distribution is also gaining its pace. Some of the leading platforms that have garnered 487 million subscribers in Q1 2021 include Spotify at 32%, Apple Music at 16%, Amazon Music and Tencent both at 13%, Google at 8%, Netease at 4%, Deezer and Yandex at 2%, and Pandora at 1%. The rest 9% resides with other streaming platforms.