Drake - Scorpion Cover via OVO Sound
With 132 million global streams according to unofficial reports, Drake’s “Scorpion” had a big first day on Spotify.
It had an even bigger opening day on Apple Music.
According to the service, “Scorpion” achieved 170 million Apple Music track streams in its first 24 hours. That represents a new record for “any streaming service.”
While Spotify boasts more global users than Apple Music, the comparatively greater success on Apple should not be surprising.
In 2016, Drake gave Apple Music and iTunes an exclusivity window on his album “Views.” That window played an instrumental role in driving Drake fans (and overall hip-hop fans) to Apple Music. Hip-hop releases thus tend to perform disproportionately well on the Apple service.
Apple Music, moreover, made “Scorpion” available to subscribers immediately upon launch at 12AM ET Friday. Spotify did not release the album until about 2:12AM ET.