Close to a year and a half post its launch, Apple music now has 20 Million paid subscribers. This marks a 3 million growth in numbers in a span of 2 months. The same number stood at 17 Million at the end of September.
Though not a huge growth figure, the still significant 15 % growth is majorly due to the exclusive deals, tie ups with artists, some lucrative subscription offers along with free trial period for three months. Launched in June 2015, Apple music is finally out at giving a tough competition to Spotify, having 40 million paid subscribers.
Apple’s top albums for 2016 in U.K. include Views by Drake, 25 by Adele, Purpose by Justin Bieber and ‘Now thats what I call music 93 & 94’ by various artists. Further, Apple has released 70 exclusives since its launch out of which 6 had been placed on US Billboard charts. Speaking about the exclusives, Eddy Cue, Apple’s chief of internet software and products said,
The exclusives are relatively short term – it’s not something that stays on any one platform. But being able to do unique things with artists is a good thing and I think that’ll continue.
Due to Apple Music’s exclusives, its primary, long-standing rival Spotify started offering services like stream free, on-demand tunes with advertising to cut the populace towards Apple’s exclusives. What is however intriguing, is the fact that the client base for both the music streaming giants grew at a similar pace (~30%) in almost a similar stretch of time.
Apple’s gain however, isn’t exactly just due to its own efforts. Music streaming in general, is a growing business as more and more sites are sprouting up to offer millions of songs to its users. These songs come at affordable pricing, starting at close to £10 per month.
What also seemed to have worked for Apple, is larger engagement of the younger, student driven audience. Apple Music offers several benefits under its student membership schemes, which have proved to be beneficial for the company in gaining more users. The evidence for the same comes from the last 12 months — not a single song has been downloaded by 60% of its users from iTunes.
Editing by Deepanshu Khandelwal
