Last we checked, which was back in September, Apple Music played host to 15 million subscribers. It was then revealed a couple of months ago that the number of paid subscribers was around the 6.5 million mark, a pretty impressive feat given that the service has been around for less than a year.
However those numbers are expected to grow rather significantly in 2016. A report from Music Business Worldwide has revealed a prediction made by music industry analyst Mark Mulligan, in which Mulligan states that he believes by the end of 2016, Apple Music will have grown to 20 million paid subscribers.
As for the more immediate future, Mulligan expects that Apple Music should have about 8 million paid subscribers by the end of 2015. Given that in October there were already 6.5 million paid subscribers, hitting 8 million does not really seem like that much of a stretch. To give it some context, Spotify had boasted 20 million paid subscribers back in June.
Whether that number has gone up or down since then is anyone’s guess, but if Mulligan’s predictions were to come true, Apple Music could very well catch up to Spotify in 2016, assuming that Spotify hasn’t already pulled ahead of them. Of course along the way it is possible that Spotify could introduce new features that would allow them to get the leg up on Apple Music, so we guess we’ll have to wait and see how this one plays out.
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