“Apple Music has garnered some 15 million users in its three short months in business, music industry sources told The Post,” Claire Atkinson reports for The NY Post. “The figure is said to be a home run for Apple Music execs, whose projected number was on par, but who conceded that a slow first quarter ramp-up would be the norm, sources said. Around half of those who signed up have not turned off auto-pay, which means they’ll convert from free to paid customers, sources said. The initial free three-month trial ends on September 30.”
“If those 7.5 million Apple subscribers stay with the service after the gratis period, the company will have more than a third of Spotify’s 20 million paid subscribers. Spotify launched globally eight years ago and in the US in July 2011,” Atkinson reports. “‘If Apple reports between 30 million and 50 million trialists by year-end, then we can consider it successful,’ music industry analyst Mark Mulligan of MIDiA Research told The Post. ‘More than 5 million paying subscribers would be a success. Above 7 million would be a strong success,’ he added.”
“Mulligan also said that even a 25 percent conversion rate of free to paid would be positive,” Atkinson reports. “He predicts that 35 percent to 40 percent of users might make the first payment (due October 1) and then 20 percent to 25 percent would make a second payment.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: To turn off Apple Music’s automoatic renewal:
In iTunes:
1. Click on your account
2. Select “Account Info”
3. Select Settings>Subscriptions and click “Manage”
4. Set Automatic Renewal to “Off”In iOS’ Apple Music app:
1. Tap your account
2. Tap “View Apple ID”
3. Select Subscriptions and tap “Manage”
4. Hit the toggle button to turn of automatic renewal
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
I took advantage of the trial and signed up on the first day, switched off auto renewal that day.
After two months using Apple Music, I have switched auto renewal back on. I spend more than £10 a month on music, so a subscription service makes sense to me.
I’ve also discovered loads of artists and genres I wouldn’t normally have found through my usual channels of listening.
I was skeptical at first about it, but I’m in now 🙂
Auto renewal is a deceptive practice. If Samsung did this Apple fanboys would be howling their derision.
I’m leaving auto renewal on and cancelling my SiriusXM subscription. I’ll actually save money doing this.
Wish they had a more limited, cheaper plan for those who listen more sporadically. Maybe they can cap it at some point beyond which they’d charge more. I might sound like a cheapskate, but I think the user base would grow exponentially that way.
I’m going to cancel one of my Sirius plans and keep the Apple Music family plan. Love when I ask Siri what song is playing on the radio and then I can instantly add it to my music.
I’m keeping mine turned on as well simply because my wife really enjoys it I don’t listen to music that much but I have an extensive catalog of over 160 gigs and every now and then I like finding new music as well so it’s a go for me on Apple music
Hundreds of millions of accounts- can’t give it away but to 15 million.
Mr Cue, please go away and take Beaten By Dre with you.
I agree that Dr. Doom, I mean Dre, was if anything a major disincentive to go Apple Music but hopefully things will get better in the future with people who are real musicians and performers plus a better UI.
I am on the fence. I got it right away but used it very little since except rarely as a tool to find certain music. So I dunno. Think I’d rather pay Apple that monthly iPhone stipend to ensure year phone upgrades instead, even if a bit more.
On Sunday I experienced an Apple Music gotcha. I changed my main email/username and passwords and also updated my iCloud username and password on my iPhone 6 Plus (iOS 8). Doing this caused all of my Apple Music downloads and all of my created Apple Music playlists songs to be deleted from my iPhone. The playlists titles and artwork were still on the phone, but the songs were missing.
Apple said they could not help regain these playlist songs. Then I remembered the links to these playlists were sent to friends, so I tested the links and all the songs were there (iTunes?). Next, I began to rebuild all those playlist songs on my phone. When trying to add the first song, a message told me Apple Music for iCloud needed to be enabled. After agreeing, another message explained that there was content in the cloud and asked me to merge those songs with the songs already on my device. After selecting yes all the playlists that I have created using Apple Music have been restored with the proper songs. Yeah!
Here’s the latest, for your pleasure…
https://itunes.apple.com/us/playlist/candle-formations/idpl.57cb3b5767c647a5a9e90b4e84692b84