Apple Music Has Over 10 Million Subscribers

The on-demand music streaming service was launched in June, following the $3.2 million acquisition of Beats Audio in May.

It comes less than two months after Apple boss Tim Cook announced the service netted more than 6.5 million paid users in its first four months, meaning it has gained an average of around 42,000 paying customers every day since.

The sharp increase in recent months may be due to the fact Apple recently killed off Beats Music.

Beats Music was set up by rapper Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine, and Apple bought the brand in 2014.

“We’ve had a long relationship with music, and music has had a rich history of change, some of which we’ve played a part in,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said at the launch.

“It’s good news that Apple is making streaming work but it is also going to accelerate the decline of downloads,” Mark Mulligan, music industry analyst with Midia Research told the Financial Times. Apple was rapidly gaining on Spotify, and at its current growth rate had “the potential to be the leading music subscription service sometime in 2017”.

Apple describes the app as ‘All the ways you love music. All in one place.’

It consists of three main features – a music service so users can stream songs, a global 24-hour radio station called Beats One and a social network for artists to share information with fans.

The milestone comes less than two months after the service was extended to Google’s Android operating system, software that powers the majority of the world’s mobile devices.

To put this into perspective, it took major rival Spotify six years to reach this milestone, but the site now has 20 million paying subscribers.

Apple has likely benefitted from its three-month free trial, which, unsurprisingly, will automatically renew unless users are quick enough to cancel. Both Spotify and Apple Music cost $9.99 per month, though iOS users who subscribe to Spotify through iTunes must pay $12.99 to cover Apple’s controversial cut of App Store proceeds.