Apple Music has 6.5 million paying customers, according to no less an authority than Tim Cook, speaking at the Wall Street Journal Digital Live conference.
Given that Apple claimed it had 11 million people using its free trial back in August, that’s an impressive free-to-paid conversion rate of almost 60 percent. It’s also around one-third of the paid subscriber base of Spotify, which has 20 million subs.
Good work, Apple. Good work.
Cook didn’t provide any further details of demographics, but did note that 8.5 million people are still using the Apple Music free trial which is available in China, where it recently launched.
Referring to the total 15 million+ listener base of Apple Music, Cook described himself as, “really happy about it,” and said that he thinks, “the runway here is really good.”
Realistically, we’re still going to have to wait a few months to see how Apple Music levels out, of course. Despite the free trial ending, it’s all but guaranteed that a certain percentage of paid subscribers simply forgot to cancel their memberships on time, and may do so after noticing the service appearing on their monthly bills.
With that said, it’s still definitely a great start for Apple Music — particularly since the company itself has noted that it is still very much a work in progress.
