In April 2018, Apple announced the promotion of Oliver Schusser to lead Apple Music Worldwide. His new title became vice president of Apple Music & International Content.
Micah Singleton for Billboard:
“You hear Tim [Cook] talk a lot about humanity — how we’re at the crossroads between the liberal arts and technology,” says Oliver Schusser. “It’s got to be both.”
A veteran of German media giant Bertelsmann — first BMG and then Napster, when the company invested in it — Schusser spent 15 years at Apple building iTunes’ international operations from the ground up. He took charge of Apple Music 15 months ago in an expanded role as Jimmy Iovine shifted to a consulting role and Robert Kondrk, who ran the business side, moved to product and design.
Weeks after Apple Music’s fourth anniversary, and with well over 60 million paying subscribers, the service is in as strong a position as ever to challenge Spotify — which has 100 million paying users — as the biggest paid music streaming service. And with his low-key, efficient approach, Schusser has — as nearly two dozen sources inside and outside Apple who were interviewed for this story put it — dissolved the internal divide of the Iovine era and stoked a renewed energy.
MacDailyNews Take: German efficiency will power Apple Music to become the No.1 streaming music service, not just in the U.S. where it’s already No.1, but worldwide, too!
Spotify is a poor man’s Apple Music. The demographics in this race, as ever, greatly favor Apple in the long run. — MacDailyNews, January 3, 2018
It really makes no sense whatsoever to subscribe to Spotify when it has 40% fewer tracks than Apple Music for the exact same price. Apple Music boasts a catalog of 50 million songs; Spotify has just 30 million. If you’re still subscribing to Spotify, it’s past time for you to cancel it and upgrade to Apple Music. (See also: How to move your Spotify playlists to Apple Music.)
