Apple Music Hits 15m

According to a new batch of shadowy ‘sources’ and as reported in the New York Post, Apple Music now has 15 million users as it approaches the end of its three-month free trail period. Approximately half of these have not turned off automatic renewals for the free trial, which runs out on 30th September.

If Apple comes out that trial period with 7.5m paying customers, it will have over a third of the size of Spotify’s current user base of the £20m it reported in June.

As reported, Apple claimed to have 11m subscribers in August despite a contested report that 61% of users had already turned off the auto renewal. Apple refuted this, stating in fact 79% of people who signed up were still using the service.

This is likely to get interesting following 30th September, though inevitably there will be an additional month in which a certain amount of users will simply forget to cancel the auto renewal.

Spotify Founder Daniel Ek went on record this month stating that the launch of Apple Music had actually helped Spotify to gain subscribers, adding that “It’s getting easier and easier to sign people up”- although he did not specify any figures to support this.

There is increasingly a view that two can and will co-exist, the main concern being that the streaming landscape will descend into a sort of turf war, with numerous services offering a range of fragmented exclusives from artists.

In related streaming news, subscriptions in the US reportedly started to flatline this month, according to this report from Music Business Worldwide.

Back in the UK, Deezer announced plans to compete against Spotify and Apple with the launch of an IPO (initial public offering) on the Paris Stock Exchange.