Alongside its announcement of Apple’s quarterly earnings, its first revenue decline since 2003, Apple has also announced latest numbers for Apple Music, its $9.99 per month streaming music service. The company says it now has 13 million paying subscribers, up from 11 million in February.
This compares to about 30 million subscribers to leading competitor Spotify, although the service obviously had a multi-year headstart over Apple’s streaming service, which launched last June.
Apple is looking towards its Internet Services businesses to support future revenue growth, so strong performance of Apple Music is crucial to the bottom line as sales of iOS devices flatline (or fall).
Apple has been relying on a mixture of exclusive deals and celebrity advertising to promote its streaming music service. Apple is rumored to be producing some exclusive TV shows and movies as another medium for Apple Music promotion.
Apple will discuss more about its financial results on its earnings call, likely to stress Apple Music’s success relative to its overall business performance. We will liveblog the call as it happens — follow along here.
Silver lining: iPhone SE is “supply constrained”, Apple Music topped 13 mln users, highest number of “switchers” from Android ever in H1
— Daisuke Wakabayashi (@daiwaka) April 26, 2016
