US: Apple says it collects fee on less than 1% of Spotify users

Music streaming service Spotify pays Apple a 15% fee on about 680,000 of its 100 million premium customers, Apple disclosed in a response to Spotify’s complaint with European antitrust regulators.

Premium customers pay a monthly fee or are in a free trial of Spotify’s premium service, which is ad free. Spotify has a total of 217 million customers, including users of its free service.

Apple competes directly with Spotify with its Apple Music service. In March, Spotify filed a complaint with European Union regulators claiming that Apple’s control of the App Store, including fees it charges for taking payments through the store, had made it unfairly difficult for rivals to compete for music subscribers.

Apple charges a 30% fee for in-app purchases made through the App Store, a fee that drops to 15% on subscription purchases after one year.

In exchange, Apple handles all the mechanics of billing and payments in more than 100 countries. But in Apple’s response to Spotify’s complaint, Apple stated that Spotify does not currently pay a 30% fee for any of its premium users and that only a small fraction are affected by its fees.