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Apple Music Now Has Over 10 Million Subscribers After Just 6 Months

Sunday January 10, 2016 10:20 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Spotify-Apple-Music-logosApple Music has surpassed 10 million subscribers across iOS, Mac, PC, Android and Apple TV in just six months, a milestone that took its largest rival Spotify around six years to accomplish, Financial Times reported on Sunday.

Apple Music, which launched in over 100 countries on June 30, 2015, has cemented its position as the world's second largest streaming music service behind Spotify, which last announced reaching over 20 million paying subscribers and more than 75 million active users three weeks before Apple's streaming service became available.

Spotify was an early entrant in the streaming music market when it launched in Europe in October 2008. The service did not expand to the U.S. until July 2011 due to lengthy negotiations with major record label companies, and it has since launched in nearly 100 countries and territories worldwide. Unlike Apple Music, Spotify also offers a free ad-supported tier with limited features on desktop and mobile.

Music industry analyst Mark Mulligan predicted last month that Apple Music would have 8 million subscribers by the end of 2015, and he expects the service to reach 20 million total users by the end of this year. At that pace, Apple Music could top Spotify as the largest streaming music service by number of subscribers in 2017, assuming that Spotify maintains around its current rate of growth.

Apple has reportedly internally set a goal of reaching 100 million Apple Music subscribers. Tim Cook confirmed 6.5 million paid subscribers last October.

Update: Spotify told Business Insider that it experienced its fastest subscriber growth ever in the second half of 2015, but did not provide an updated subscriber total.

Tags: Spotify, Apple Music
[ 241 comments ]


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ButteryScrollin
34 months ago

I still have an untouched 3 month trial. It's going to stay that way for a very long time.


Thanks for letting us know.
Rating: 37 Votes
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dark_knight177
34 months ago
Just because they made 10 million users doesn't mean it's any good. That's just the power of default music app, which the first thing any iOS user will see is "Try Apple Music for free".

If Spotify was part of default music app, it would have 100 million users by now.

Considering Apple has a user base of 800 million iPhone users, 10 million is a surprisingly low number, which actually indicates that Apple Music is a poor product.
Rating: 36 Votes
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Orlandoech
34 months ago
Good for them, I'm not one of them. I prefer to own my music.
Rating: 36 Votes
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skinned66
34 months ago
I still have an untouched 3 month trial. It's going to stay that way for a very long time.
Rating: 27 Votes
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Slix
34 months ago
That's good to hear. However, for those that aren't at all interested in Apple Music as a streaming service, can Apple please make the iOS music app more usable, similar to how it was previously? There is no reason to lump "My Music" into one little tab, and not allow you to edit the tabs at the bottom of the screen at all, to bring back Songs, Artists, Albums, etc.

For music browsing and listening, I still prefer my 6th gen iPod nano, or any of my older iPods, for that matter.
Rating: 23 Votes
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AustinIllini
34 months ago
So much development is necessary before the cluster that is Apple Music reaches 100 million users.
Rating: 17 Votes
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AbSoluTc
34 months ago
I had Spotify for about a year or two and then Apple Music launched. Signed up for the trial and didn't use either service much. Decided to keep Apple Music and ditch Spotify for a couple of reasons.

[LIST=1]
* I grew very tired of the black and green color scheme.
* Being able to say "Hey Siri - play whatever song I want/album/genre" is excellent!
* Integration

Apple has some work to do on the service/interface for sure but it's a decent start and I am happy with it. I listen to music every so often but not enough to be hard core. I also enjoy having any song I want at my finger tips at any time. I also was never big on music purchasing either. Just casual all around.
Rating: 15 Votes
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kupkakez
34 months ago
I really like Apple Music. As soon as it came out I unsubscribed from Spotify and have been using Apple Music since. No major complaints here.
Rating: 12 Votes
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mj1108
34 months ago
Sticking with Google Music. Sorry Apple.
Rating: 12 Votes
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joeblough
34 months ago
everyone hates on apple music but it works OK for me and it's hella cheap for the family (4 users), plus i get a discount from buying iTunes gift cards at 20% off. used to use rdio but clearly apple music put the last nail in their coffin.
Rating: 12 Votes

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