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Apple Targeting 100 Million Subscribers for Streaming Music Service

Monday June 8, 2015 6:12 am PDT by Joe Rossignol

Apple has an ambitious goal to sign up 100 million subscribers for its upcoming streaming music service known as Apple Music, according to The Associated Press. A subscriber base that large would trump competing services such as Spotify, Pandora, Deezer and others, which had a collective 41 million paid U.S. subscribers in 2014 per the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.

beats-music-app-ios

Apple Music is widely expected to be a rebranded and improved version of Beats Music, which the Cupertino-based company acquired for $3 billion last year alongside the Beats Electronics headphones and speakers division. The much-rumored streaming service will reportedly cost $10 per month, with a three-month free trial period, and focus on exclusive content and human curated playlists.

Beats Music had 303,000 U.S. subscribers as of December, trailing market leader Spotify's 4.7 million U.S. subscribers by a significant margin. Nevertheless, Apple previously said it has over 800 million users with iTunes accounts to its advantage and will reportedly present those users with the option to purchase an Apple Music subscription instead when downloading songs and albums through the iTunes Store.

Apple is expected to unveil its new streaming music service at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference today in San Francisco. During the opening keynote at 10 AM Pacific, CEO Tim Cook and other executives should reveal several details about the service alongside other announcements about iOS 9, OS X 10.11, Apple Pay and more. MacRumors will be providing live coverage of the event as it unfolds.

Tags: Spotify, Apple Music, The Associated Press

Top Rated Comments

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KindredMAC

46 months ago

Who else has the same sinking feeling as I do that once the WWDC keynote is over everyone is going to sit there blinking like, "seriously? that's it?"

Rating: 13 Votes

OllyW

46 months ago

Much like the Maps app, it will be Apple's cut at streaming radio, so it will be the best and all of the rest will become "abominations" that "99% don't want". While they were fine- even loved- before Apple decided it wanted to step into the space, now we have to hate them, while rallying around the only one that "got it right". You've been here long enough. You know how things work.

I'm not even convinced by the competition, I'm yet to be persuaded that renting music makes any sense. :D

Rating: 9 Votes

bushido

46 months ago

100 mio but US only? how is that gonna work

Why does it have to be better? It doesn't. Apple Music simply has to be 'good enough' to compete.

I bet within a month, more people will know what Apple Music is vs. Spotify or Rdio. Most people don't know what those are now. The only one that has made a name for itself, that most people know is Pandora.

(Most people still use real radios to 'stream' music - I bet Apple will change this with marketing)

no one knows Spotify??? in what universe

Rating: 6 Votes

k1121j

46 months ago

count me out ....perhaps if its free with adds but not 10 bucks a month i have so many options to listen for free ill buy the songs if like em

Rating: 6 Votes

bbeagle

46 months ago

I'm in the US and EVERYONE knows Spotify. Not everyone uses it, but it's easily the most popular streaming service. What country are you in that know what knows Spotify?

It depends on what social group you're part of. I'm here in the United States. NOBODY I know uses Spotify. Some (maybe 1 in 10 has even HEARD of it). People around here listen to Pandora or the radio. That's it.

Put Spotify numbers into context....

How many Apple Watches do you see out there? The number of people who own Apple Watches isn't much less than the number of Spotify paid members.

Maybe in YOUR social circles, Spotify is used all the time, but not in most social circles.

Rating: 4 Votes

OllyW

46 months ago

I fully expect Apple to deliver on these ambitious numbers. I've been saying for some time I'm expecting the likes of Spotify and Rdio to become also-rans in a relatively short space of time. They cannot compete with Apple.

What do you think it will do that is so much better than the competition?

Rating: 4 Votes

OllyW

46 months ago

100 Million times $10/month = $1 Billion per month. 3 months at $1 Billion/month = $3 Billion.

If this is going to be embedded in iOS 9, it seems very likely Apple will become King of the streaming space within hours after launch. This is just the Microsoft IE browser (vs. established Netscape) thing again.

And, since there is a 90-day free trial, Apple should be able to tout gigantic numbers of users pretty quickly. The key question will be monetizing free trials to stick around and start paying. The referenced rumor of 800 million iTunes accounts means about 1/8th of all iTunes users will need to not only partake in the free trial but convert to paying subscribers AND/OR that this will significantly draw more people into the iTunes total number of accounts pool.

It will need to be available worldwide immediately to take advantage of those 800 million iTunes accounts. Restricting the launch to just a single country will not be enough to gain that many users.

Rating: 4 Votes