Key Takeaways:
- Suno’s US downloads are up 73.8% year to date, the only gain among nine popular audio streaming apps
- Suno took 14.3% of third-quarter US downloads across those nine apps, up from 9.3% a year earlier
- Still, Suno remains a small fish in a big pond, with its US DAU share sitting below 1%.
Suno raised more than $400 million at a $5.4 billion valuation in June, and on September 9 it launched its v6 models, which Warner Music Group co-developed after settling its lawsuit with the company last November.
Apptopia estimates Suno’s US downloads at 2.9 million in the third quarter, up 56.7% from a year earlier and up 73.8% year to date. That’s the only gain in 2026 among nine US audio apps: Suno, Spotify [SPOT], YouTube Music [GOOGL], Amazon Music [AMZN], Pandora, SoundCloud, SiriusXM, iHeart and TIDAL. Spotify is down 1.5% this year and Amazon Music is down 21.4%. The other eight combined are down 8.7%.
Suno is growing but that growth is decelerating: its year-over-year download growth was 104.5% in the first quarter, 74.9% in the second and 56.7% in the third. The second quarter was Suno’s biggest at 3.7 million.
On share of US downloads across the nine apps, Suno held 14.3% in the third quarter, up from 9.3% a year earlier. Only Spotify is bigger at 34.8%, and YouTube Music is next at 11.2%. Suno’s share peaked at 17.7% in the second quarter. Amazon Music gave up the most over the year, going from 11.7% to 8.9%, and Pandora went from 12.3% to 10.9%.
Even with impressive growth, its share of daily users for this market in the US sits below 1%. Spotify hovers around 70%.
Spotify and YouTube Music Users Are Finding Suno
In Apptopia’s US panel, 1.6% of Spotify’s monthly users also used Suno in January. By September it was 2.1%. YouTube Music went from 1.6% to 2.1% as well. Apple Music [AAPL] went from 2.6% to 3.0%, though that series bounces around (it was 1.3% in March). Amazon Music didn’t move, at 1.7% in January and the same in September.
Flip it around and the picture is mixed. The share of Suno’s monthly users who also use Spotify fell from 41.5% in January to 34.2% in September, and the share who also use Amazon Music went from 7.7% to 3.9%. YouTube Music (40.4% to 38.9%) and Apple Music (2.9% to 2.6%) barely changed.
Part of this is music lovers exploring new options and part of it is Suno finding its own new audience.
Suno’s Audience Looks Most Like YouTube Music’s
At the start of the year, Suno’s weekly users were spread across age groups in almost the same proportions as YouTube Music’s. Since then Suno has aged. Users 36 and up went from 48.8% of its weekly audience in January to 57.4% in September, which pulled it away from YouTube Music but it’s stil the closest match of the four rivals.
Spotify’s audience looks the least like Suno’s, with 43.3% of its weekly users aged 17 to 25 against 21.7% for Suno. So far Suno’s growth hasn’t dented YouTube Music, whose estimated daily users are up 11.6% from a year earlier.
Churn is Hurting Suno
Retention is where Suno still trails every competitor in the set. In September, 44.8% of the users active 30 to 60 days earlier hadn’t opened the app in the last 30 days. Spotify’s churn rate was 20.5%, YouTube Music’s 28.4%, Apple Music’s 35.4% and Amazon Music’s 40.2%. It’s coming down, though. Suno’s churn averaged 52.4% in the first quarter and 47.2% in the third, while Spotify’s went from 19.6% to 20.3%.
The 36 to 45 group, now Suno’s biggest, churned at 37.7% in September, against 47.3% for ages 17 to 25 and 48.6% for ages 26 to 35. At Spotify it’s the youngest users who stick best, at 16.3%. Suno’s Power Users, the top 10% by usage, churned at 8.2%, level with Spotify at 8.2% and YouTube Music at 8.4%.
