“Respected music business analyst Mark Mulligan is estimating that Apple Music will have nearly 8m subs at the end of 2015, a number which will more than double in 2016,” Music Business Worldwide reports.
“Mulligan notes that Apple Music ‘went from zero to the No.2 streaming service in a matter of months in mid-2015,'” MBW reports. “He forecasts that Apple Music should hit around 20m subscribers by the end of 2016 – which won’t quite catch Spotify, but will solidify the platform’s position as the market’s No.2.”
MBW reports, “‘If Apple finds growth tough going, expect it to throw everything it has got at getting the labels to agree to lower price point products so it can open up large chunks of the iTunes music customer base,’ [Mulligan told MBW].”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Not a bad showing at all for a paid-only service currently forced to compete with “free” (ad-supported) outfits that artists in general barely tolerate, if not outright hate.