Apple Music’s three-month trial program paid off, now at 11 million users

Maybe Apple Music’s free three-month trial wasn’t such a bad idea after all. After a report said that Apple Music had over 10 million paying subscribers last week, today Apple senior vice presidents Craig Federighi and Eddy Cue let it slip that the number is actually 11 million, and counting. The two spilled the beans during well-regarded Apple blogger John Gruber’s podcast, The Talk Show, which was published today. To put that number in perspective, Spotify has about 20 million paying subscribers – of about 75 million total listeners – while Tidal is sitting at roughly a million total subscribers. Tallying 11 million members one year after launching the product is a major success, and flies in the face of the many pundits who argued that three months of free service while paying artists would incur a major loss for the company. It’s not clear how much of the company’s $18.4 billion of profit came from Apple Music, if any, but 11 million subscribers paying a $9.99/£9.99 monthly fee points to seems like the initial gamble paid off. Whether those subscribers are actually enjoying the world premieres of new music on Zane Lowe’s Beats 1 show or simply forgot to unsubscribe after the three month trial period ended, however, wasn’t specifically mentioned during the interview.
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