Apple CEO Tim Cook attended the WSJDLive conference in October and, at the time, revealed that the Apple Music it had already acquired 6.5 million paid subscribers. Another 8.5 million were in the period trial free, totaling 15 million people. The figures were subsequently officially confirmed by Apple at its last financial results conference.
In mid-December, analyst Mark Mulligan bet that, by the end of this year, Apple Music will reach 20 million paid subscribers. Because, according to the Financial Times, Apple would now be halfway there.
Vehicle sources say Apple Music has already surpassed the 10 million paid subscribers. In June last year, Spotify released its last official number, which was up to 20 million. Since then, it may have increased (it may already be in the $ 25 million range), but Apple's performance is amazing in just a few months, while its main competitor has been in the market for years. Spotify's gigantic number comes, of course, from its free plan; with it, the service totals 75 million users worldwide.
If Apple keeps this pace, I wouldn't be surprised if it outperformed Spotify in paid subscribers until 2017. The strength of it is huge, and it's worth remembering that Apple Music is already “embedded” in iOS, OS X, watchOS and now also on tvOS, in addition to being available on iTunes for Windows and, more recently, as an app for Android.
