Pandora Continues to Lose Subscribers to Apple Music, More to Follow
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Pandora claims to have lost 1.3 million subscribers in the third quarter because of Apple Music. They also lost that same amount when iTunes Radio debuted in 2013. That sounds like an awful lot until you learn that they’ve broken even with the amount of new subscribers during the third quarter. The CEO of Pandora told stockholders that the decline is short-term. The music streaming service does have 78.1 million active members and, like with Spotify, most users are signed up for ad-supported service, meaning they pay nothing.
Apple Music is comparably priced, and you have access to the full iTunes catalogue. It’s sort of like an all-you-can-eat buffet of music across all genres. Individual plans are $9.99 and family plans are $14.99, and you can take advantage of a 3-month free trial.
Photo: Mashable
6.5 million Subscribers are paying for Apple Music while 8.5 million are on the free trial. While it may not sound like much, Apple Music’s long free trial may be enough to get quite a bit of paid subscribers. Pandora is in a bit of trouble, especially with a new Apple Music Android app soon to be released. The app is already in beta, and will have the three-month trial also available to Android users at release.
The new app will adhere to the Android design, but still look like an Apple app, so says Jason Hahn from YahooFinance.com. The Beats 1 radio station will be included, which should comfort Android fans. Some users of the beta version of the app have reported problems logging into their Apple account, suggesting that there are still come kinks to work out. However, once finished, it’s likely that some Android users will subscribe, or at least try Apple Music. Good news for Apple, not so much for Pandora.
The popularity of Pandora was unrivaled, even with other music streaming services like Spotify competing for listener’s ears. Apple Music is likely to be a bigger threat to Pandora, in part because of the popularity of Apple, but also because there are millions of iTunes users. Pandora has been around a while, so it’s probably not on its last legs, but it might have to settle with losing some of its grip in the market. It just may be more than they will like.
