Apple Music continues to grow its subscriber base around the world – but it’s not adding enough each month to cause Spotify too many sleepless nights.
In May, Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed that his company had attracted 50m subscribers worldwide across both fully-paid up members and free trialists. (Apple Music offers new users the chance to try out its platform without cost for three months before charging a monthly fee.)
Now, according to a Financial Times report, the ‘number of Apple Music subscribers has grown to 56m, up from 50m in May’. (You’d expect that this 56m figure includes free trialists – as the cited 50m number from May certainly did.)
Apple has therefore reportedly added 6m subscribers in a six month period, broadly speaking, from end of May to end of November – an average of a million new subs per month.
In Spotify’s last known six months (to end of September), the company added subscriptions at double this rate, finishing this period with 87m subscribers worldwide.
However, this six-months was not an even ride for Daniel Ek‘s firm.
In the first three months of this half-year (to end of June), Spotify officially added 8m paying subs worldwide. But in its second three months (to end of September), the platform added just 4m paying customers.
The 87m paying subscribers which Spotify reported at end of September is over 30m more than Apple’s latest tally. Spotify also posted 191m total monthly active users at the end of Q3.
Meanwhile, Apple appears to be adding subs at a slightly slower rate than it was at the end of 2017 and the start of this year.
According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Apple had 36m subscribers at the start of February this year – up by 6m in five months, or an average monthly net sub addition of 1.25m.
Apple rival Amazon announced on Friday that Apple Music will now be compatible with its flagship Echo speaker.
Meanwhile, Apple is rumored to be considering the acquisition of a stake in iHeartMedia.
Apple bought Shazam for $400m in September, before acquiring (‘acqui-hiring’) the team behind AI-drive A&R tool Asaii in October for what the Financial Times says was “tens of millions of dollars”.Music Business Worldwide
