Apple Music has officially surpassed the 40 million subscriber mark. It’s an impressive milestone for the music streaming service, which has also just found itself a new leader. Earlier this week, the iEmpire announced that Oliver Schusser, who previously led several international content ventures like the App Store, iTunes Movies and TV, iBooks, and Apple Podcasts, will be taking on the challenge of leading Apple Music Worldwide. Schusser’s new official title will be vice president of Apple Music and International Content.
Under his leadership, Apple no doubt hopes to grow its user numbers even further. In the last three years, the company has racked up an impressive fan base for its streaming music service. Its 40 million paid subscribers as of this week hail from 115 countries, and there are currently around 8 million individuals looking into Apple Music as a free service.And while Spotify still has Apple Music beat with its 70 million paid subscribers around the world, Apple is quickly catching up. In fact, whereas Spotify’s monthly growth rate is only 2 percent, Apple Music boasts a growth clip of 5 percent.
In fact, in some regards, Apple Music is already beating Spotify. When including listeners who are either in free or heavily discounted trial periods, Apple Music has a larger user base than its leading competitor. And by the summer of 2018, the iEmpire’s service should reign supreme on the paid-subscriber front, too.Aside from the sheer volume of users that Apple Music has amassed, particularly compelling is the rate at which it has done so. Two million of its 40 million total subscribers were added in just 30 days — just a few months ago, it took five weeks for Apple Music to go from 36 million to 38 million subscribers.
The success of Apple Music proves that Apple, while traditionally known as a hardware company, is more than capable of expanding its offerings. In fact, as the App Store and other services like Apple Pay and Apple Music continue to grow, services now comprise Apple’s second-largest business unit after the iPhone. In the first quarter of 2018, services revenue reached $8.5 billion, up from $7.2 billion during the same first quarter period in 2017.
