Apple Music growth isn’t slowing $potify

Apple Music grew by about 11 percent this summer, to 30 million paid subscribers — but likely failed to gain ground on Spotify, the No. 1 music streamer in theworld.

Sweden-based Spotify has grown by 20 percent since March, to60 million paid subscribers. It also is now worth $16 billion, based on a recent cash-raise— up from$13 billion in June.

Spotify is gearing up for a 2018 initial public offering.

Indeed, Spotify lately has landed a few hits at the expense of Apple Music.

In June, Taylor Swift announced that her music would be returning to Spotify, nixing her exclusive deal with Apple Music to stream her smash album“1989.”

And earlier this month, Spotify and Hulu announced a partnership that would give college students access to both of their premium services for a $5 monthly fee.

Jimmy Iovine, the boss of Apple’s music streaming service, however, remains bullish.

Apple Music is still taking its first steps, according to Iovine, and will overtake Spotify in the long run because of Apple’s nearly endless resources.

“[Spotify’s] costs are extraordinary. It’s going to get bigger and bigger and bigger, and the costs are going to get higher, not lower,” he told Billboard, which first reported Apple Music’s latest subscriber base. “Going into new countries means localizing everything. It’s going to cost a lot of money.”

Services like Apple Music and Spotify accounted for 62 percent of the music industry’s revenue so far this year. But Iovine said simply streaming existing music catalogs isn’t enough — that companies need to help artists create more, rather than relying on their libraries of aging songs.

“We’ve loaded as many creative people as we can into one place,” he said. “What will happen, inmy experience, is something really cool.”