Apple Music gets $5 student plan to boost subscriber numbers

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Apple Music
Apple is looking to students to boost its music subscriber numbers.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Apple Music has a not-unimpressive 13 million subscribers right now, but Apple is looking to expand the number of customers willing to spend money on the service by targeting a group that has historically been one of the company’s strongest customer bases: students.

With that in mind, Apple today launched a new Apple Music ‘student’ pricing plan which slashes the per month cost in half ($9.99 down to $4.99 in the United States) for anyone in higher education.

The membership option is currently available in the United States, U.K., Germany, Denmark, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, although I wouldn’t be surprised to see it expand elsewhere if it proves a success.

The cost reduction is available for a maximum of four-years after you sign-up, although those four years don’t have to be consecutive, meaning that students can take breaks between semesters. Apple is working with a student verification technology provider, UNiDAY, to make sure that people who sign up to the service as students are actually enrolled as they claim.

Will it boost subscription numbers as Apple hopes? Given that students, according to one poll, crave iPhones and iPads more than hooking up, drinking or partying, I’d have to say that it’s got a good shot.

This isn’t the only improvement Apple is making to its streaming music service, either. Earlier this week it was reported that Apple Music is set to get a major facelift at June’s WWDC event, offering a total redo of the user interface to make it easier to navigate, along with better integration of streaming and downloading options, and an expansion of its Beats online radio service.

With iPhone sales figures falling after almost a decade of continuous growth, it makes perfect sense that Apple would choose to focus on improving its services output to make up some of the lost revenue.

Does cost impact your decision to subscribe (or not) to Apple Music? Leave your comments below.

Via: TechCrunch

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