A report coming by way of the Financial Times says that Apple reached a feat many believed it couldn’t do: reaching 10 million Apple Music subscribers.
It took Apple just 6 months to achieve 10 million paying customers, which is an impressive feat. In contrast, it took Spotify six years to amass that many paying customers, though part of the problem is that Spotify wasn’t able to make itself available in 100 countries on launch day like Apple Music was.
Apple hasn’t detailed figures, but if all 10 million customers were paying for Apple Music’s $10 tier, it’s not hard to see the success Cupertino is seeing with the music streaming service.
Many wonder if Apple’s subscriber base will continue to grow at this rapid pace. While it may not grow as fast as it has in the six months it has been available, it’ll no doubt garner millions of additional subscriber by the end of 2016.
After all, the Cupertino-based company is hard at work on its Apple Music for Android application. It’s nowhere near as polished as its iOS counterpart, facing many bugs and performance issues, but once that’s all worked out, Apple will no doubt be able to establish itself as the go-to music provider on Google’s mobile platform.
However, Apple Music will face some stiff competition. There are only so many people that will pay for a monthly music streaming subscription, and Spotify currently holds 20 million of those subscribers.
One big benefit Spotify has going is its free tier, helping bolster the music streaming service’s active listener numbers to 75 million. It’s not clear yet if Apple will try to compete with that by offering its own free tier, as the only way to use Apple Music right now is through that subscription fee.
Apple has a lot of plans for Music, especially as it continues to work on its Android application. It’s also hoped that the company will bring some much-needed design changes to the Apple Music app on both iOS and Android, which would certainly make the music streaming service more attractive to switch to.
While Apple Music has without a doubt been a huge success, the real news is how popular music streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music are making exciting waves in the music industry.
Music streaming is only increasing in popularity, and as a result, some Americans are saying that labels and industry groups should get a smaller share of income. If this were to happen, it could have potential for cheaper music subscriptions in the future.
Another report, this time coming by way of Reuters, said that music streaming in the US was up by 93% in 2015, largely thanks to Apple Music. Consumers listened to 317 billion songs over music streaming services in 2015, exceeding initial projections.
With that in mind, physical album sales also saw a natural decline again, which is a trend we’ll only continue to see as services like Apple Music and Spotify continue to grow. It would have no doubt been an even larger decline if Adele’s “25” and Taylor Swift’s “1989” were available on streaming services, something we’ll hopefully see change soon.
One thing’s for certain: music streaming is a giant that cannot be stopped as it continues to swallow up those physical album sales.
source: Financial Times
via: Engadget
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