Apple Reports 6.5 Million Paid Subscribers For Apple Music; Spotify Holds Strong With 20 Million
It's taken Apple just three and a half months to amass 6.5 million paid subscribers to its streaming music service. That's nearly a third of the number of users who pay a monthly fee to Spotify, which is sitting at 20 million paid subscribers after seven years in the streaming business. As you imagine, Tim Cook is pleased with how things are going.
Cook revealed the 6.5 million figure while speaking at The Wall Street Journal's WSJDLive 2015 event. According to Cook, "people love the human curation" that Apple Music offers, noting that prior to launching the service he was tired of hearing the same songs being played over and over again (on other services).
Apple Music launched at the end of June to much fanfare. The service runs $9.99 per month for unlimited on-demand streaming access to millions of songs, though you can test it out free of charge for three months. Millions have done exactly that -- Apple announced in early August that it signed up 11 million trial subscribers.
Nearly half of those trial members have now quit the service, which makes it even more impressive that Apple Music has nearly a third as many subscribers as rival Spotify in such a short period of time.
FBR & Co. analyst Daniel Ives notes that 6.5 million subscribers is better than expected, adding that Apple is "off to a solid start" with its streaming service. Going forward, he says Apple should focus on converting more trial members while simultaneously "adding unique content and services" over the next six months.
Cook revealed the 6.5 million figure while speaking at The Wall Street Journal's WSJDLive 2015 event. According to Cook, "people love the human curation" that Apple Music offers, noting that prior to launching the service he was tired of hearing the same songs being played over and over again (on other services).
Apple Music launched at the end of June to much fanfare. The service runs $9.99 per month for unlimited on-demand streaming access to millions of songs, though you can test it out free of charge for three months. Millions have done exactly that -- Apple announced in early August that it signed up 11 million trial subscribers.
Nearly half of those trial members have now quit the service, which makes it even more impressive that Apple Music has nearly a third as many subscribers as rival Spotify in such a short period of time.
FBR & Co. analyst Daniel Ives notes that 6.5 million subscribers is better than expected, adding that Apple is "off to a solid start" with its streaming service. Going forward, he says Apple should focus on converting more trial members while simultaneously "adding unique content and services" over the next six months.
