Apple Music survived a challenge from Taylor Swift to still attract 11 million trial users, Apple said today.
The streaming service launched on June 30 without a free, ad-supported option. It costs $9.99 a month for a single user and $14.99 a month for an account that up to six people can use. The service did have a PR hiccup when Swift insisted that artists be paid for music users listen to during the three-month trial period. Apple eventually acquiesced, since they couldn’t be on Swift’s bad side too long, and insisted that artists will be paid.
It looks like that issue didn’t stop many from signing up though. Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet software and services told USA Today that the company is “thrilled” by the results. He added that 2 million users even picked the $14.99 option.
The 11 million start is good news for Apple, which had fallen behind in the music streaming sector. That’s already over half of Spotify’s subscriber base and well above the 700,000 people who subscribed to Jay Z’s troubled Tidal service.
Cue also said that Apple had a record $1.7 billion in transactions on the App Store in July alone. The company also posted $50 billion in revenue during the previous fiscal quarter.
image courtesy of Roger Wong/INFphoto.com