Marco della Cava, writing for USA Today:
One month after unveiling its new streaming music service, Apple has locked in 11 million trial members, company executives tell USA TODAY.
“We’re thrilled with the numbers so far,” says Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet software and services, adding that of that sum 2 million have opted for the more lucrative family plan at $14.99 a month for up to six people.
Note that these are unpaid subscribers, folks dipping their toes in the Apple Music water. But that said, a solid start. And 2M of the 11M, or 18%, are family plan members.
Reports in Digital Music News and other outlets that monitor streaming music have indicated Apple’s intent to dominate streaming music – with a goal of 100 million subscribers, or double the total of all current services combined – despite its late entry into the field. This fall, Apple will unveil Apple Music for Android users in beta, part of CEO Tim Cook’s pledge to be platform agnostic with the service.
100 million paying subscribers? Here’s some math (please correct me if I get this wrong):
(82% * $9.99) + (18% * $14.99) = $10.89
That’s the average price per user, given 2M of 11M sign up for the Family Plan.
$10.89 x $100M = $1.09 billion per month, which is $13.07 billion in annual revenue. Not too shabby for a startup business, if they can reach that goal.
Update: Fixed a typo and the math that went along with it.
Heh, that’s more than Amazon makes in a year.
I’m not “locked in” as the McPaper article says. I’m likely going to stop it at the end of the trial. I don’t like the interface, I don’t like Beats 1. They don’t make Elton John’s Rocket hour available for download (I know, licensing) so I really have no reason to subscribe. Other services are more to my liking.
I’m a family plan trial user too, and you can take my name off the list of future paid subscribers. The interface is earth-shatteringly horrible and the outweighs access to the music library, which I have been enjoying. However, as a long time rdio desktop user, I’m going to try the rdio mobile service, which I hear is much easier to use.
Also, I’v noticed that the Apple Music streaming is pretty poor, not in sound quality but in availability. In places where Pandora plays without any problem, Apple Music churns and churns trying to start the stream
The number of family subscribers seems too low.
The only thing that means anything is how many start paying for it after the free trial period.
The free trial has allowed me to discover both the new system and to discover again music I used to listen to, but now don’t really want to buy, explicitly. I can just turn it on and be free to turn it off again.
I get to check out in more depth all the bands I used to hear on the radio but have been effectively kept away from because my wife “can’t stand that crap.” I’d much rather keep her as well as be married, but now I can enjoy a lot of that “crap” again whenever I’m on headphones or when she’s not with me.
I also like being able to tell Siri exactly what to play in so many different ways.