Apples and Oranges: Subscriber Stats

New figures released this month have revealed that just under half (48%) of iOS users that have trialled Apple Music are not now using the service- but do such stats tell the whole story?

As reported by The Guardian, industry analytics company MusicWatch recently conducted a survey of 5,000 people in the US, stating that 61% of users had turned off the auto renewal (reportedly a task in itself).

Apple of course immediately hit back at MusicWatch for sticking their foot out to trip them up just as they had completed a victory lap of announcing 11 million users. Apple issued a statement to The Verge claiming that their retention rate was actually 79%.

As pointed out here by Billboard both sides are potentially right, a key point being that the survey figures are from the US whilst Apple’s are global, covering the 100 markets that can access the service, a real case of comparing apples to oranges.

Interestingly, MusicWatch’s survey found that although 61% had already turned off the auto-renewal option, 64% of current users say they are very likely or extremely likely to subscribe, meaning that despite the current trend for Apple music bashing, could hypothetically pocket 3.9m users in the US alone by end of year, putting it in at least the top three subscription services, after Spotify and Deezer. Not too shabby but probably below par for a company accustomed to global dominance to every market it enters, especially as Spotify’s use base remains so far unaffected.

The real question, of course is where both services will end the year and if the apple is likely to fall from the tree.