Apple aiming for $5 Beats Music streaming subscriptions

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So long as the next episode doesn't include antitrust violations, that is. Photo: Beats Music
Beats Music could cost as little as $5 per month. Photo: Beats/Apple

Having helped pioneer the concept of the $0.99 music track on iTunes, Apple is now trying to bring down the price of streaming music.

According to a new report published by Re/code, Apple is pushing music labels for extensive price cuts that would bring the cost of a Beats Music subscription from its current $10 price point all the way down to $5.

Apple’s logic is supposedly based on the fact that your average iTunes user spends $60 per year on downloaded music, which works out at $5 per month. If the subscription price was therefore comparable, more people would subscribe, and it would be easier to switch over to a streaming business model.

It has previously been reported that Apple’s re-imagined subscription music service will be timed to coincide with the Grammy Awards on February 8, 2015. It has also been suggested that Apple plans to bring Beats Music under an Apple-branded umbrella, thereby making Beats a hardware-only brand.

The news additionally follows on from reports earlier today that rival service Spotify is finally allowing music lovers to share their subscriptions with their family and friends with a new Spotify Family plan, starting at $14.99 per month.

Of course, if Apple does manage to get its price cuts approved we would most likely see these happen across the board, since any reductions available to Apple would have to be offered to all of its competitors, too.

It’s also less clear how this slashing prices in half factors into Apple’s alleged goal of helping up-and-coming artists to make money.

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