Fast-growing Apple Music has a massive 50 million active users

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Apple Music
Apple Music has passed another benchmark.
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Apple Music has passed the 50 million active user mark, just one month after it passed the 40 million user landmark.

Tim Cook shared the news during an interview with Bloomberg Television, during which he also talked about Apple’s original content push and his recent meeting with President Donald Trump.

Apple Music is part of Apple’s fast-growing Services division, which represents an ever-growing part of Apple’s business. At its current trajectory, Apple Music is on track to overtake Spotify for paying customers in the U.S. this summer.

However, it’s worth noting that Cook’s 50 million users figure doesn’t exclusively refer to paying customers. While Apple Music does not offer a Spotify-style free tier (with the exception of allowing people to listen to its Beats-1 radio station), the number also refers to people trying out Apple Music on a free trial.

The figure is most likely around 42 million monthly paying subscribers, and around 8 million people currently listening to Apple Music on a try-before-you-buy trial basis.

While Apple’s figures are undoubtedly impressive, though, the service is still in second place after Spotify. In Spotify’s recent first ever earnings report as a public company, it noted that it has around 75 million paying customers and a massive 170 million monthly total active users.

During Cook’s talk with Bloomberg, he additionally responded to questions about Apple’s push into streaming video and original TV shows and movies. “We are very interested in the content business,” he said. “We will be playing in a way that is consistent with our brand. We’re not ready to give any details on it yet. But it’s clearly an area of interest.”

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