Apple Music, the music streaming service from Apple has surpassed the 10 million subscriber mark in just half a year since it was launched. This is a milestone given that popular competitor Spotify took 6 years to get there.
Spotify reported having 20 million premium subscribers as of June last year, at least a month to the launch of Apple Music. It is expected that the number has since risen and the service may be yet to see a user exodus to Apple’s streaming service. Spotify’s free tier had 75 million users during the same time frame. An independent survey intimated that users were not sticking to Apple Music after trialing the service for free for 3 months. Instead, more still preferred their existing options including downloads via iTunes and other options and streaming on competing services like Spotify.
An independent survey had earlier intimated that users were not sticking to Apple Music after trialing the service for free for 3 months. Instead, more still preferred their existing options including downloads via iTunes and other options and streaming on competing services like Spotify.
Apple Music only became available on Android, the most popular mobile platform in the world, last month. Apple is counting on the service’s large collection of music, a few unique titles like Taylor Swift’s 1989 album and her recent tour exclusive and its availability in over 100 countries to keep users.
Besides Spotify and Apple, other on-demand music streaming services including Google Music and France-based Deezer are expected to help renew interest in the music industry which has suffered from the decline in online music downloads over the years after the peaking of iTunes. Google Music recently became available in South Africa. Google is tight-lipped on the service’s eventual availability in Kenya leaving users with few options like Apple Music and Deezer which are available locally.
Source: FT
