Apple Music continues to cement its position as a leading music streaming service, after Spotify that is. Apple Music now has more than 30 million subscribers, according to a new report. Apple’s music streaming service has picked up 10 million additional subscribers since December last year. Some 3 million joined after Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this year in June.
Apple Music has managed to keep up with Spotify’s growth rate. It gained 15 million subscribers on average per year as compared to 20 million for Spotify over the past two years. Apple will not be able to overtake Spotify at this rate but it will continue to solidify its position as one of the leading music streaming services in the world.
“Just because we’re adding millions of subscribers and the old catalog numbers are going up, that’s not the trick. That’s just not going to hold,” Apple Music boss Jimmy Iovine tells Billboard.
A big part of Apple Music’s growth strategy is to build relationships between artists and fans by providing them with exclusive content such as interviews and documentaries. Apple Music has also been pushing exclusive releases to drive its subscriber growth.
These strategies appear to have worked well for the company so far but it remains to be seen if they will be enough for it to overtake Spotify at some point down the line.