The cumulative number of Apple Music subscribers continues to grow and now exceeds 10 million users, this according to a recent report from the Financial Times. Since launching in over 100 countries in late June, Apple Music has had somewhat of a tumultuous existence. The initial launch, if you remember, was plagued with a number of frustrating bugs and an inconsistent and muddled user interface.
But over the last few months, Apple has quietly addressed a number of these problems and the service’s popularity appears to be trending upwards. The last figure regarding Apple Music subscribers came from Tim Cook who said this past October that Apple’s streaming music service boasted over 6.5 million paying members. So in about three months time, the total number of Apple Music subscribers has increased by over 50%. And priced at $9.99 for an individual subscription, the company’s streaming service is already generating $100 million in revenue a month.
To put the 10 million subscriber figure into perspective, consider that it took Spotify a little less than 6 years to hit 10 million subscribers. Of course, it was a lot easier for Apple to hit that same milestone given that streaming music is a lot more mainstream these days, not to mention the company’s unique advantage of being able to bundle Apple Music with every new iOS device sold.
Today, Spotify boasts over 20 million subscribers, so Apple still has a ways to go to catch up. Nonetheless, reaching a tad less than 50% of Spotify’s subscriber base less than a year in is an impressive achievement.
For what it’s worth, Spotify was quick to counter the report with good news of their own. Speaking to Business Insider, Spotify told Jay Yarow that the company during the second half of 2015 enjoyed their highest period of subscriber growth ever.
“The last time Spotify announced numbers was in June of 2015,” Yarrow writes. “At that time it had 20 million subscribers, up from 10 million a year prior. If Spotify’s growth was faster than ever in the second half of 2015, then it added more than 5 million new users over the last six months of the year. If we had to guess, we’d say Spotify had 25-30 million subscribers at the end of 2015.”
Seems like a reasonable estimate.
