“Maybe it’s because I spent part of my morning locked in a losing battle of wills with its malfunctioning interface, but the news that Apple’s new streaming service, Apple Music, has only acquired 6.5 million paying subscribers since its summer launch strikes me as a pretty inauspicious start for a product with all the marketing muscle of the world’s most famous tech company behind it,” Jordan Weissmann writes for Slate. “CEO Tim Cook shared the figure Monday night at a Wall Street Journal tech conference, adding that another 8.5 million users are signed up for free three-month trials on the platform.”
“Americans alone owned an estimated 94 million iPhones as of March,” Weissmann writes. “With 15 million users total, less than half of whom are actually shelling out $9.99 a month for it, Apple Music doesn’t seem to have penetrated all that deeply among Apple fans, which is a little disconcerting given that the app shows up automatically as part of an operating system update.”
“Given that the service had about 11 million users signed up for free trials in August, Apple Music appears to be converting about 60 percent of the people who try it into paying customers—which has some analysts upbeat about the results,” Weissmann writes. “But there’s a strong chance a lot of those new paying members accidentally allowed their subscription to auto-renew and will cancel as soon as they realize they’re actually shelling out for the privilege of streaming Taylor Swift.”
Weissmann writes, “So, is Apple Music a total failure or just a slight disappointment? For the time being, I’d lean toward the latter.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It’s neither. It’s just now obvious to everyone that this subscription music thing is going to be a long hard slog. Apple is playing the long game here and these are very early innings. Apple Music is an excellent service, it just seems to be a tough sale to most people. Perhaps as they encounter those who have Apple Music – at a party, say – and see what having virtually every recorded piece of music at their fingertips is like, they’ll see the tremendous value Apple Music offers.
Don’t discount the tremendous advantage Apple Music enjoys by being preloaded on every iPhone, iPad, Mac, and iPod touch sold. Many millions will sample the service for their initial three-month trial period and some percentage will sign up. Eventually tens of millions (and beyond) will be subscribing to Apple Music.
SEE ALSO:
Apple’s new billion-dollar businesses: Apple Watch and Apple Music – October 20, 2015
Tim Cook: Apple TV launches next week; Apple Music has 6.5 million paying subscribers – October 20, 2015
Are 11 million Apple Music subscribers – during a free trial in over 100 countries – worth bragging about? – August 10, 2015
Older people are more likely to pay for Apple Music – October 19, 2015
Jimmy Iovine: Apple Music ‘going really well,’ no ad-suported free tier ‘shell game’ – October 8, 2015
Eddy Cue on Apple Music: We’re not fixated on short-term subscriber numbers, ‘we’re in this for the long haul’ – October 1, 2015
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Tom R.” for the heads up.]
