Apple Music is still growing at a nice clip — but the company keeps touting different stats to mark its upward trajectory.
The tech giant now has surpassed 60 million subscribers for Apple Music, Eddy Cue, senior VP of Internet Software and Services, revealed in an interview with French news site Numerama published Friday.
Contacted by Variety, an Apple representative clarified that the 60 million figure includes both paying customers and those on free trial accounts. That means the streaming service has grown about 20% overall since May 2018, when Apple cited 50 million total users (paid plus free).
In January, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced on the tech giant’s earning call that it had hit 50 million paid Apple Music subs. It’s unclear how many paying customers Apple Music has currently. The company launched the service in June 2015.
In any case, Apple continues to trail Spotify, the global market leader in the music-streaming subscription biz, which reported 100 million paid subs as of the end of the first quarter of 2019. Spotify said it had 217 million total users (paid and free) as of Q1, up 26% year over year.
Apple in September plans to launch macOS X 10.15 (code-named “Catalina”), in which the iTunes software application will disappear from the Mac — replaced with dedicated apps for Apple Music (which will manage songs that users have purchased, downloaded or ripped from CDs), Apple TV and Apple Podcasts. The iTunes Store will continue to offer online music purchases.