Beats Music on the slow path: About 28,000 people sign up in first month

By Williams Pelegrin March 21, 2014

apple beats music spotify subscription revealed hands on — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Back in late January, Beats decided to swim in the lake that was music streaming services by launching Beats Music, started by Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre. According to a report by Bloomberg, it seems that Beats Music is building quite the subscriber base.

If “people with knowledge of the situation” are to be believed, Beats Music signed up roughly 1,000 subscribers each day in its first month of availability. In other words, before it issued free trials with AT&T, about 28,000 subscribers enrolled to Beats Music. According to the sources, these statistics were provided to investors in February.

While 28,000 subscribers in the first month doesn’t sound very impressive, keep in mind that Beats Music encountered several server issues, which prevented some people from signing up for the service. According to Beats Music boss Ian Rogers, the issues cropped up due to “the extremely high volume of interest” in the service.

According to the sources, the AT&T partnership created 750,000 potential subscribers that signed up for the 30-day and 90-day free trials. So far, after trials are ending, more than 70 percent are becoming paid subscribers. While that is a much more significant statistic, Beats Music will need at least 5 million paid subscribers in order to become profitable, according to Boston analytics firm Recon Analytics.

We compared Beats Music to its main competitor, Spotify, and found that, while Beats Music doesn’t have fully-baked social services, it provides ample competition to the industry leader. For $10 a month and a song library that easily competes with the best, Beats Music should not be overlooked.

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Williams Pelegrin

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Williams is an avid New York Yankees fan, speaks Spanish, resides in Colorado, and has an affinity for Frosted Flakes. Send…

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