In a week’s time, the earliest adopters of Apple Music will be deciding whether to start paying for the streaming service or not. The New York Post published some new figures garnered from “music industry sources” on its performance so far, claiming that the number of trial members has grown from 11m to 15m, and that “around half of those who signed up have not turned off auto-pay, which means they’ll convert from free to paid customers” on 1 October.
That would mean 7.5 million Apple Music subscribers three months after launch, making it comfortably the second-biggest subscription music service – albeit some way behind Spotify’s 20 million subscribers. Mind you, people not turning off their auto-pay isn’t the same as explicitly deciding to start paying: in early August, industry consultant Mark Mulligan predicted that around half the people making a first payment for Apple Music in October will have forgotten the auto-pay aspect, and will quickly cancel.
If he’s right, that would suggest 3.75m subscribers come November. But this is speculation built on rumours – if Apple Music performs well, we can expect Apple to announce a figure later this year. And if not, its silence will be just as telling.
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