Apple Music surpasses 20M subscribers after 17 months of service [u]
Less than 18 months after its debut in 2015, Apple's fledgling music streaming service Apple Music recently surpassed 20 million subscribers, a milestone that took rival Spotify some seven years to reach.
The achievement, which comes only three months after Apple Music hit 17 million subscribers, was confirmed to Music Business Worldwide on Tuesday.
For Apple, the 20 million subscriber mark punctuates a year and a half of sizable gains. Starting with a strong initial install base of iOS and Mac device owners in June 2015, the number of paying Apple Music subscribers reached 6.5 million in just four months. By February, Apple's streaming music service topped 11 million and was attracting about one million new users per month.
Apple Music subscriber figures hit 13 million in April, 15 million in June and 17 million as of the company's last official update in September.
In a statement to Billboard, Apple SVP of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue took the opportunity to tout Apple Music's impact on the wider music industry.
"It's been quite a year," Cue said. "We were thrilled to see that we could take [artists'] passions and drive them all the way to No. 1. Chance the Rapper, who we put on Apple Music exclusively, hit the top 10 on the Billboard charts [based on streams alone], and I can't recall that being done before."
Apple Music's biggest rival, Spotify, announced a paying subscriber base of 40 million users as of September, a number set to grow beyond 50 million users early next year.
Products like Apple Music, Spotify and Pandora are leading the charge as consumers increasingly pivot away from physical media and, more recently, digital downloads in favor of all-you-can-eat streaming services. In 2016 alone, Spotify added some 12 million paying subscribers, while Apple Music attracted 10 million users. Those numbers are in addition to free services like Pandora, YouTube, Beats 1 Radio and Spotify's own free-to-stream tier.
Of note, Cue said some 60 percent of Apple Music subscribers have not made a purchase from the iTunes Music Store in the last 12 months. Further, more than half of all subscribers live outside of the U.S.
With substantially similar content libraries, and the seeming demise of streaming exclusives, companies are turning to pricing promotions and rate cuts to bolster customer growth. Apple Music, for example, expanded its half-price student membership option in November to cover a total of 30 regions worldwide, and is said to be mulling a 20 percent price drop to better compete with rivals like Amazon's Music Unlimited.
Despite a minor falling out with Universal Music Group, Cue said exclusives will continue in the near term and is expectedly upbeat on the future of Apple Music.
"We can't forget that, as an industry, we still have very few music subscribers. There are billions of people listening to music and we haven't even hit 100 million subscribers," Cue said. "There's a lot of growth opportunity."
Editor's note: This article has been updated to include a statement from Apple SVP Eddy Cue.
The achievement, which comes only three months after Apple Music hit 17 million subscribers, was confirmed to Music Business Worldwide on Tuesday.
For Apple, the 20 million subscriber mark punctuates a year and a half of sizable gains. Starting with a strong initial install base of iOS and Mac device owners in June 2015, the number of paying Apple Music subscribers reached 6.5 million in just four months. By February, Apple's streaming music service topped 11 million and was attracting about one million new users per month.
Apple Music subscriber figures hit 13 million in April, 15 million in June and 17 million as of the company's last official update in September.
In a statement to Billboard, Apple SVP of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue took the opportunity to tout Apple Music's impact on the wider music industry.
"It's been quite a year," Cue said. "We were thrilled to see that we could take [artists'] passions and drive them all the way to No. 1. Chance the Rapper, who we put on Apple Music exclusively, hit the top 10 on the Billboard charts [based on streams alone], and I can't recall that being done before."
Apple Music's biggest rival, Spotify, announced a paying subscriber base of 40 million users as of September, a number set to grow beyond 50 million users early next year.
Products like Apple Music, Spotify and Pandora are leading the charge as consumers increasingly pivot away from physical media and, more recently, digital downloads in favor of all-you-can-eat streaming services. In 2016 alone, Spotify added some 12 million paying subscribers, while Apple Music attracted 10 million users. Those numbers are in addition to free services like Pandora, YouTube, Beats 1 Radio and Spotify's own free-to-stream tier.
Of note, Cue said some 60 percent of Apple Music subscribers have not made a purchase from the iTunes Music Store in the last 12 months. Further, more than half of all subscribers live outside of the U.S.
With substantially similar content libraries, and the seeming demise of streaming exclusives, companies are turning to pricing promotions and rate cuts to bolster customer growth. Apple Music, for example, expanded its half-price student membership option in November to cover a total of 30 regions worldwide, and is said to be mulling a 20 percent price drop to better compete with rivals like Amazon's Music Unlimited.
Despite a minor falling out with Universal Music Group, Cue said exclusives will continue in the near term and is expectedly upbeat on the future of Apple Music.
"We can't forget that, as an industry, we still have very few music subscribers. There are billions of people listening to music and we haven't even hit 100 million subscribers," Cue said. "There's a lot of growth opportunity."
Editor's note: This article has been updated to include a statement from Apple SVP Eddy Cue.
Comments
solid first 18 months.
But obviously quite a few of them are converted to paid subscriptions. The count has only been going up. If most subscribers simply used their free subscription and then opted out, the numbers would either be flat or negative.
So for the past year and a half, the number of people opting to continue paying for it is more than the number of people bailing after the free period.
What im saying is that it's Apple Music was not a conscious choice for me. But I'm putting up with over complex interface cf Spotify because the price is right. When the time comes I'll switch back to Spotify because it does a few things really well.
Managing playlists
searching for and playing songs
easy to use ui
these things are no brainers for a music app but in my view Apple Music gets it wrong.
Now Spotify on the other hand.... methinks that '40 million' figure has a lot of fluff in there (super cheap 3 month memberships). However, I could be wrong....
Yup, I'm two months into mine. As far as I know, Apple doesn't count you as a subscriber until you start paying.
I like the interface. I love the curated radio stations (which know my taste in music better than I do). What I don't love is having to pay for iTunes Match AND the streaming service. Aren't they kind of the same thing?
The discounted 12 months subscription deal (which you can combine also with cheap iTunes top up cards) AND international expansion of the STUDENT subscriptions will no doubt have helped. And also let's not forget family
Yup. My dodgy typing: I meant to say Apple doesn't count you as a subscriber until you start paying.
Yet to try it out personally, I've moved from Spotify to Deezer (both free with mobile contracts) and now I'm on Prime Music (free with prime) which has most of the obscure post-rock bands I listen to so it does me fine.
First, they trashed my music collection... Moved it all to their server and then, when I download "MY' music I get songs with the same title but completely different versions (provided the song is available at all). Plus they removed the genres I had assigned so I can no longer call up say "80's rock" or "Christmas" and play a few hours of my favorite tunes.
Also, my data plan is now always almost max'd out each month from all the downloading. And, when I try to play already downloaded music, I have to do it song by song because my library is so chopped up individual songs from play lists. So, on long road trips, I have to balance the cost of going over my data plan to listening to chopped up music from my download library.
I addition, Apple Music seems mostly focused on the current music scene which, frankly, to me, is mostly not music. If it isn't rap, then its a single singer singing in a monotone over top of a monotone electronic track. Beats adds potential -- but most of the DJ's need to cut down on the caffeine. I want music, not somebody bouncing off the walls...
Yes, I have experienced some advantages to it. But they are counter balanced by the disadvantages -- and the result is mostly a wash... I tried it as an experiment and have been giving myself time to adjust to a different way. But, so far, its hard to justify paying for...
Like the Apple Watch, I wonder if Apple is just getting advice and direction from the wrong people?
When Apple first introduced the radio stations, I used it at home all the time, but couldn't at work for that very reason.
family plans are counted as one membership.