Apple Music Tops 10 Million Paid Subscribers 6 Months After Launch
The power of Apple's reach and marketing has propelled the service past 10 million subscribers in its first six months. The impressive growth of Apple's paid-only service is likely to put further pressure on Spotify, Deezer and other music streamers who rely heavily on free tiers to drive pad subscriptions.
Apple Music has passed 10 million paying users just 6 months after launch, reports the Financial Times. Spotify, which took 4 years to reach 10 million, officially boasts of 20 million paid subscribers, though insiders expect an announcement soon that the music streamer has passed 25 million.
News that Apple Music was doing well began to trickle in as labels received their first full royalty payments from the service since it's initial 90 day trials. Several sources told Hypebot that they received checks bigger than expected.
Spotify, Deezer and early players like Rhapsody certainly paved a path. But Apple Music is bringing streaming music to the masses with growth fueled by Apple's marketing power and huge customer base who all woke up 6 months ago to find the Apple Music app loaded onto their tens of millions of iPhones and other Apple devices. Industry analyst Mark Mulligan has predicted that Apple Music will pass 20 million paid user by the end of 2016
“Spotify, which took 4 years to reach 10 million, officially boasts of 20 million paid subscribers, ”
Don’t forget that a big chunk of those Spotify paid subscribers are on the “pay 1$ a month for the 3-first months” offer that Spotify introduces and re-introduces several times a year. These are essentialy disguised free-tier customers that are only there so that Spotify can skew the numbers and claim 20 million customers. There is probably only half or less of those paid customers that are on the real 10$ a month plan. So in essence, Apple Music is probably already surpassing Spotify in terms or REAL paid customers.