Apple Music Gains Another 2 Million Subscribers Hitting 40 Million Total

Apple Music wants to beat Spotify in the streaming music game. Apple's streaming music service has been growing at about 5% per month compared to Spotify's 2% growth per month. At that pace, some in the industry think that Apple could have more subscribers than Spotify by the end of 2018. Spotify currently has around 76 million paid subscribers.

Apple's latest Apple Music subscriber count puts the tech giant's service at 40 million users. That is up 2 million since last month when the service reported 38 million subscribers. That gain in such a short time signals that Apple's growth is accelerating. Apple has also given up details on the number of subscribers currently on a free trial. This rare look into Apple Music's trial users shows another 10 million people trying the service.

Many of those trial users certainly won't continue to pay for the service, but a lot of them will. Apple has seen its paid subscribers grow 48% since last June. Spotify, on the other hand, has seen 46% growth between 2016 and 2017. 

The Motley Fool reports that in Q1 fiscal 2018 Apple services revenue was $8.5 billion, which is up from the $7.2 billion in the same quarter of last year. That growth is notable because the same quarter of last year had an extra week of earnings in it.