Tim Cook may like the “runway” for Apple Music’s take off, but Spotify is currently soaring.
Apple’s competitor in the music streaming business found itself in the No. 1 position on the iPhone App Store’s Top Grossing charts for the first time in the United States. This is on the same day that the Apple CEO Cook told the audience at the Wall Street Journal Digital Live conference that Apple Music has 6.5 million paying customers.
If Spotify executives are gloating, they are doing so privately. There is no mention on the official Spotify blog of this milestone. Spotify has 20 million subscribers to its paid, commercial-free service while it has another 55 million who tune in to the free programming.
Cook told the WSJD audience that he was “really happy about” the numbers on Apple Music so far, adding “the runway here is really good.” Cook has also said Apple is aware of the work it still needs to do to make the streaming service a success.
TechCrunch’s Sarah Perez wrote today that Spotify could be benefiting from the launch of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. Some iPhone users, Perez wrote, could be new to music streaming and checking out different services, like Spotify or Pandora.
The timing of Spotify’s rise to the top also falls a couple weeks after the three-month trial of Apple Music ended for the service’s earliest adopters. During the trial, Apple claimed 11 million users took advantage of the free trial; if 6.5 million are currently paying, that free-to-pay conversion should be encouraging for Apple.
But as Cult of Mac‘s Luke Dormehl pointed out earlier today, there are likely several Apple Music users who are unaware the free trial is over and are currently paying because they forgot to cancel their memberships.
Source: Tech Crunch
