Apple Music Already Has Millions Of Users, Per Apple CEO

It has not been a full month yet since Apple officially launched Apple Music, the company’s brand new music streaming subscription service. But during a recent earnings call, the tech giant’s chief executive officer, Tim Cook, is already announcing that millions of people are already using the service.

It should be noted though that in launching Apple Music, Apple is offering its music streaming subscription service basically for free through a three month trial period. The more interesting question is -- will people still continue to use the service when their free trial subscriptions are over and they are automatically charged $10 per month?

During the earnings call, Cook also took the opportunity to reveal that around 15,000 musical artists are already starting to share updates via Apple Music. These pop stars are already sharing unreleased tracks and music videos on Apple Music’s Connect section. For instance, Grammy Award winning Canadian rapper has debuted his new music video on Apple Music. As for the Beats 1 radio station, Cook also mentioned that millions of listeners have also started tuning in to the service since launch.

It is rather odd that Cook has not provided any specific numbers when he made his announcement. But still, the fact that millions of users are already into Apple Music is a clear indication that people are really checking out the new service. Although it helped a lot that Apple Music was launched via a software update on iOS, which meant that users never had to do much in availing of the service -- Apple Music just rolled out automatically to millions of iPhone devices.

Apple had to go through a lot in trying to bring its Apple Music service to light. It started when the tech giant acquired Beats Music, a music streaming service from the popular Beats brand (the one who makes those fancy headphones). Apple then discontinued Beats Music, saying that it planned to rebrand it as part of iTunes. Fast forward to now, it later evolved into the Apple Music service.

By any measure, attracting millions of users is certainly a good start for Apple Music. But it still has a long way to go before it can supplant Spotify. To date, Spotify has about 75 million active listeners, which consists of 55 million ad-supported free tier users and 20 million paying listeners. Spotify, of course, entered into the music streaming business way earlier than Apple did. But who knows in a few years, both brands could be competing neck to neck for all the listeners’ ears.