Apple is aiming to sign up a massive 100M subscribers for its streaming music service, according to a source cited by the Associated Press (reproduced in the NY Times). This would be more than double the subscriptions for all other streaming music services combined.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry says that existing worldwide streaming subscriptions total around 41M across all services. The market leader, Spotify, has around 4.7M subscribers in the USA …
The same source confirmed the $10/month subscription we’ve reported previously, noting that existing Beats Music subscribers would be migrated to the Apple Music service before the Beats-branded service is closed.
It’s believed Apple hopes that a combination of its huge iPhone customer base and a lengthy three month free trial will enable the company to hit a highly ambitious subscriber target. The service would also expand the Apple ecosystem, providing an additional reason for iPhone owners to remain loyal to the company.
“They are very late to the game on streaming,” said analyst Van Baker at the Gartner research firm. But he said Apple can still catch up by making it easy for iPhone owners to use the new service. That’s a huge pool of potential customers: Apple sold 61 million iPhones in the last quarter alone.
Mark Gurman provided a roundup of the key things we’re expecting to hear from Apple later today, including a blending of downloaded and cloud music when creating playlists. The new iTunes Radio service will include stations created by celebrities including Dr. Dre, Drake, Pharrell Williams, David Guetta and Q-Tip. Musicians will also have their own Artist Activity feature, where they can promote their own material and share the music of other artists.
Photo: theverge.com
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Good luck with that, Apple. They surely have the fans, but it’s going to be hard to reach 100M subscriptions.
Waiting to hear what Drake’s and Tim Cook’s stalker, Rich Davis, has to say about this. He seems to comment negatively and extensively on every Beats Music article on here. I’m estimating about three paragraphs from him today.
Having Dr. Dre’s picture here in the article really is going to set Richy off.
100 million subscribers in a full year should be a piece of cake for Apple with nearly 800 million global iTunes accounts on file. Once it hits China it goes ballistic. That’s just Apple devices alone. I really like Spotify but Apple knows how to market and sell stuff. Apple will sell about 210 million iPhones for the entire year, so what’s the big deal about 100 million Apple Music subscriptions? Consumers who buy Apple have money. Spotify users are nothing like Apple product users.
This is certainly possible but then again Apple has stumbled a bit (IMHO) with some of their recent offerings. iTunes Radio is OK but once I realized that the stations I liked on there were playing the same 20 songs on shuffle I lost interest and only rarely go back. I know that that was before the Beats acquisition so we’ll see but I’m going to wait and see.
Definitely it’s gonna be great as product of Apple and Beats combined !
So, from now I’M IN :)
100M subscribers? – Maybe, in some years from now, if the monthly fee will eventually be lower than 5 USD per month. But for 10 USD, the user base will hardly grow beyond 10M!
It needs to be very compelling if you want to get that many subscribers on board. I don’t see why people would sign up for Apple’s service but not for Spotify. They would roughly cost the same so if Spotify is just a moderate success with a few million paying subscribers I can’t see how Apple will be able to turn this thing in a massive hit. Unless it’s way better than Spotify which I personally can’t believe. I love Spotify and a happy listener and I won’t ditch Spotify soon. They revolutionized the streaming industry and that’s why they get some extra credits from me.
Spotify and other streaming services are like the phone industry before the iPhone. I’m not sure Apple will hit 100M, nor was it reported how quickly they hope to get there, but I have every confidence the new Apple Music will absolutely blow away the competition in terms of features, ease of use and breadth. The biggest shame would be having to match the others’ $10 price instead of a more palatable $5-7 per month.
Exactly how are “Spotify and other streaming services are like the phone industry before the iPhone”?
When the iPhone was introduced it was completely revolutionary. it was the first smartphone to provide an intuitive, multi-touch UI; the first to offer a good mobile web browsing experience, and the first to incorporate sophisticated location and mapping functionality that was actually functional and easy to use.
What makes you think that Apple’s revamped Music service will offer even remotely the same level of innovation vs. competitors like Spotify?
You have to realize that millions of iPhone users never download apps and have no clue what Spotify is. The built in streaming service by Apple that prompts you to subscribe when you open Music app right in front of eyes will catch your attention. Free 3 month trial makes it no-brainer. After 3 months you would be so reliant on this streaming service you will pay to keep it. I think the goal is not that unrealistic!
It’s not going to be hard to reach 100 million, if they throw in a free 3 month trial, and iOS9 adds an undeletable app icon and or changes music app on iOS. The number who then pay might be smaller, but with 1,000 million iOS devices sold, they’re looking for 10% to become subscribers. Not that unrealistic – they could add it through linking in with iCloud backup as a bundle maybe – all kinds of ways.
If they promote it with their iCloud service / iTunes Match service then I might be compelled to switch. Now I pay for a 200 GB iCloud account and iTunes Match.
If this is truly also coming to Android as well as early rumors suggested, I don’t think 100M is that unreasonable.
Presuming the Android rumours are true (I believe them), I’m interested to see what the app looks like. If the iOS app is intended to integrate local libraries, will the Android app offer synching via iTunes? If “local library” is limited to people with iTunes Match, will the Android app sych with iTunes Match (iCloud) as well? The baseline would be to just have the streaming/radio components but any further tie-ins with iCloud would be interesting.
Apple should get Howard Stern, his contract is up and this could be a better platform for him to ween off his daily show on SiriusXM. A global audience might fill his ego enough to do it.
Apple will have to pay for Stern and I doubt he’s what they are looking for, even if you don’t consider the high price.
Stern’s listenership and the money they will bring in to Apple will more than cover his contract price.
I’ve been suggesting this for the past 3 years. :)
I am now a Spotify customer – but would immediately switch to an Apple Service if it is well integrated, has a good usability AND has good playlists/plays music I like.
At the beginning Spotify was great, many playlists, I use it basically as a radio service without talking, ads and with music I like.
But after knowing the 10-15 interesting playlists it becomes pretty boring – always the same music in the chosen playlists. There is no “intelligence” which just plays music I like after I select a mood and “train” it with the skipping of things I don’t like etc.
I am absolutely not interested to spend many hours hand-picking songs I like and making own playlists etc. – thats the job of radio station editors, not mine.
Also annoying at Spotify is the stuff like messages/notification (like “1 new song has been added to playlist XY” – wtf, I don’t care) and that they like to show me new artists or songs. I don’t want to get to know many new artists – just listen to music.
Hope Apple does a better job on that.
That picture is awesome because it reminds me how badly all three of those icons needs to be a single app.
They already have enough of my money tied up in software. I’m thinking that I’ll pass on this, as I’ve been terribly underwhelmed by the quality of their digital music files for years.
You must have a golden ear. If I had a nickel for every person I heard say they had a golden ear… Well, I’d have a couple of dollars at least. ;)
If it launches in more countries than just the US, then it can be feasible to have that many subscribers within a year or 2. If it comes to Canada, you can count me in. I’ve wanted to subscribe to Beats Music for quite a while, but they don’t have service for us up north.
I think Spotify is shooting themselves in the foot. I unsubscribed from their service when they provided their entire library free on the ipad. Between the ipad and pc, I’ve got work and the office covered. There is no reason whatsoever for me to pay for spotify. So, I am excited to see what apple has, and if they include China in their market, they probably will hit 100 million subscribers since Spotify isn’t offered there AFAIK.
You get Spotify free everywhere, and youre excited to pay for Apple……alright then.