Apple Music has 10m paid users claim insiders

Apple Music has reportedly hit ten million paying subscribers, with the on-demand streaming service closing the distance between it and Spotify. Although the numbers have not been officially blessed by the Cupertino firm, sources speaking to the FT say that Apple passed the 10m mark just six months after the launch of Apple Music.

In contrast, Spotify – one of the most popular streaming services – took around six years to reach 10m paying subscribers.

Back in June 2015, Spotify said it had more than 20m such customers, though newer statistics are yet to be released.

In October 2015, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that the company's music service had 6.5m paid users, suggesting a large number of sign-ups in the final quarter of the year. Apple Music gives new subscribers a three month trial to get a taste for the system, after which it costs $9.99 per month for an individual account, or $14.99 for a family account with access for up to six people.

Although Spotify originally had an edge over its Apple-branded rival in that it supported more platforms, Apple Music has been catching up there, too. While initially only available for its own devices, Apple released an Android version of the service in late 2015.

Apple also inked a deal with Sonos to support Apple Music on the company's streaming speakers.

Even if it currently has an edge, Spotify might well be feeling concerned. As we saw with Apple Maps, which edged out Google Maps on iOS devices predominantly by virtue of being preloaded rather than something users had to go searching the App Store for, there's a huge amount of value in coming loaded on a device out of the box.

SOURCE FT