Apple Music Reported to Have Reached Over 10 Million Paid Subscribers in First 6 Months

In a similar feat that took its well-established Swedish rival, Spotify, over six-years to actualize, Apple recently reported that the company’s digital music streaming service, Apple Music, has exceeded 10 million paid subscribers in the first six-months of being available to the public.

According to a report by Matthew Garrahan and Tim Bradshaw of Financial Times, citing anonymous sources, Apple surpassed the 10 million milestone just three-months after it reported an impressive 6.5 million paid users in October, 2015.

Additionally, citing music industry analyst Mark Mulligan of Midia Research, Apple apparently has “the potential to be the leading music subscription service sometime in 2017,” specifically in light of its rapid growth rate. However, he was quick to caution, “streaming also tends to come at the cost of downloads.”

According to Nielsen Music analysts, for example, while digital streaming saw a surge of about 50% in the calendar year 2014, album sales and individual track downloads decreased by 9% and 12%, respectively, during the same year.

In June, 2015, Apple formally announced its foray into the digital music streaming market with Apple Music. The service features access to Apple’s extensive iTunes music catalog, the ability to create human-curated playlists, as well as Beats One radio and iTunes Connect — a social media platform exclusively for artists.

Apple Music officially went live on June 30th, 2015, alongside the release of iOS 8.4 and additional iTunes software upgrades for both Mac OS X and Windows PC. Monthly access fees currently start at $9.99 for individuals, as well as a $14.99/month option for families of up to 6 users via iCloud’s family sharing feature.

What’s more, Apple expanded its base of hardware support with an official Apple Music app for Android in November, 2015.

And the future of Apple Music looks pretty bright, too. The company has reported that it’s currently developing a new High-resolution Audio format, boasting an impressive 96kHz expansion, 24bit-sampling rate for its Apple Music subscribers.

The company will reportedly leverage a higher fidelity audio output via the capabilities of its iOS device Lightning ports, which have been speculated to replace the standard 3.5mm headphone jack for months now.

Learn More: The Beatles Are Now Available On Apple Music – Here’s Why That’s A Big Deal