Following Apple CEO Tim Cook's disclosure at the WSJLive Conference in Laguna Beach on Tuesday that Apple Music has 6.5 million paying subscribers in less than four months since its launch, an analyst foresees the tech giant more than doubling the numbers in 12 months.
Daniel Ives, analyst of FBR & Co. finds the initial number of paying subscribers a "solid start" and forecasts at that rate new paying subscribers are signing up, he believes Apple Music could have 20 million paying subscribers within one year, reports LA Times. "A year from now, if Apple keeps going on this trajectory, Spotify's going to be looking over their shoulder," he warns.
Spotify, the market leader which has a seven-year lead ahead of Apple Music, has about 20 million paying members and 75 million users. However, the latter has 8.5 million more for a total of 15 million, but these 8.5 million users are on a free 90-day trial period that expired end of September for those who tried the service since Apple Music launched in over 100 nations on June 30.
MyTechMethod offers a comparison of the two services in the video below.
It would be worth monitoring how many of the first wave of those who signed up for the free-trial period would move to paying customers. Apple Music would need to address issues raised by those users such as bugs in the app, complex user interface and lack of clear difference from Spotify and other similar music streaming service providers.
Apple Music is pre-installed on all newer iPhone models sold in stores and those who upgraded to iOS 8.4. In Q1, Apple sold 74.5 million iPhones, although not all buyers are interested in the gadget's music service.
For those who decide to subscribe, they would have to pay $9.99 monthly or $14.99 for families, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Besides providing data on Apple Music, Cook also shared that the Cupertino-based tech giant would being to ship at the end of next week the new version of Apple TV which will lay the foundation in changing TV viewing experience. He forecasts linear viewing of TV through channels would disappear since it has outlived its usefulness.
He points out that with Apple TV's ability to search through different streaming services that interact with apps, the new device has "developed an infrastructure to fix [a] terrible broken thing that none of us like."