Apple Music has 60 million paid subscribers, according to iTunes chief Eddy Cue. Cue confirmed the new subscriber number with French site Numerama earlier today, and Music Business Worldwide shared details on the report.
Cue said that he's happy with Apple Music's subscriber count, and that the company is continually working on perfecting the platform across various devices. He also said that Beats 1, Apple's radio station, has "tens of millions of listeners."
Cue declined to divulge how many subscribers are outside of the Apple ecosystem. "I know the number, but I can't tell you," said Cue. He did, however, tell Numerama that Apple Music is the number one service used by people in the Apple ecosystem.
On the topic of the elimination of iTunes in favor of standalone TV, Music, and Podcast apps, Cue said that he's fond of iTunes, but "Apple Music is absolutely the best in all respects. We have something better now and it's useless to look back."
Apple Music's new 60 million subscriber milestone comes following a November report suggesting the service was up to 56 million subscribers. 60 million paid subscribers still puts Apple Music below Spotify, which had 100 million premium (aka paid) subscribers worldwide as of April.
Despite the difference in paid subscriber counts, Apple Music in early 2019 surpassed Spotify's paid subscriber total in the United States. Apple Music has somewhere around 28 million U.S. subscribers, compared to Spotify's 26 million.
Top Stories
Apple Considering Delaying iPhone 12 Launch 'by Months'
Apple Helps Source Over 10 Million N95 Masks for Healthcare Providers in the U.S.
Hands-On With the New 2020 12.9-Inch iPad Pro
Kuo: Apple to Launch Several Macs With Arm-Based Processors in 2021, USB4 Support Coming to Macs in 2022
Apple Releases iOS and iPadOS 13.4 With New Mail Toolbar, iCloud Folder Sharing, Trackpad Support for iPad and More
Apple Releases macOS Catalina 10.15.4 With Screen Time Communication Limits and Real-Time Apple Music Lyrics
Apple Says MacBook Air With Retina Display Can Exhibit Anti-Reflective Coating Issues, Unclear if Eligible for Free Repairs [Updated]
Hands-On With Apple's New Smart Keyboard Folio for the 2020 iPad Pro Models
Hands-On With the New $999 MacBook Air
Top Rated Comments
(View all)Agree 100%
Why pay for Music when you're able to listen to it for free, there are so many stations out there, especially on the internet.
Because you can't listen to a specific song or album with radio. Why would I sit there and listen to randomly generated songs when I can listen to exactly what I want to listen to? Radio is fine for background noise, but paying 10 bucks a month to listen to exactly what I want to hear when I want to hear it is well worth the minimal cost.
$600M per month in recurring revenue in the music streaming business and Beats’ hardware division is worth $1B on its own.
Edited for correction
Where could that numbers have been with a smoother start? I still didn’t return. Nice turnaround though.
So you have HomePods but not AppleMusic? Man, you’re really missing out.
I now prefer the interface over Spotify. It feels more Apple-like to move about (for obvious reasons), and the Watch integration is much better. Spotify still has much better recommendation playlists and algorithms, but Apple Music is getting there.