As the music streaming market expanded, it was only a matter of time before Apple entered onto the scene. And according to its recent numbers, it appears like Apple Music may have what it takes to be a strong competitor against other popular streaming services like Spotify and Pandora.
Apple revealed on Thursday that Apple Music currently has more than 11 million members since its three-month free trail period kicked off on June 30.
While this number is impressive, it's important to remember it reflects the members who signed up for free during this trial. The real question is how many Apple customers will decide to pay for the music streaming service once the free trial has run its course?
The company said that approximately 2 million of its trial members have already signed up for the $14.99 a month family plan, which includes up to six family members.
Apple Music launched with the release of iOS 8.4 just over a month ago. Apple Music features playlists that are curated by experts in the music industry instead of by algorithms, along with the radio station Beats 1 that runs 24/7. There is also a social function called Connect that allows artists both popular and up incoming to interact with fans. While the family plan costs $14.99 per month, a single subscription costs $9.99 per month.
When the trial ends on Sept. 30, Apple will start charging the user's credit cards for the monthly subscription through its auto-renewal system. While users cannot back out of the free trial period, they can cancel the automatic renewal by going into the Account Settings in their Apple Music profile.
Because of this auto-renewal system, Apple Music may lock some users into subscribing, but there have already been complaints that the streaming service is not performing up to par. Many of the complaints are surrounding the service's functionality, such as wrongly identifying songs.
While the 11 million figure seems to be impressive, Apple Music may still not be able to catch up to its competitor Spotify. Spotify has over 75 million active users, with over 20 million of them subscribers.
According to the 2015 annual report from Pandora, the music streaming service has about 250 million registered users, and 81.5 million active users from the 30-day trial period ending Dec. 31, 2014.
Reportedly, Apple has the goal to get over 100 million people to subscribe to Apple Music.
Via: CNET
