During Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference today out of San Jose, the company revealed that Apple Music now has 27 million subscribers, up from the 20 million figure Apple executives revealed in December, and some 40 million songs in its catalog just shy of two years after launching the service on June 30, 2015.
The number was given in passing during today's presentation, when Apple's senior vp of software engineering Craig Federighi said, “Last fall, we introduced an all new design for Apple Music which brought greater clarity and simplicity to the Apple Music experience. We now have 27 million customers who really enjoy the curation as well as the personalization of Apple Music.”
In December, when the music platform announced it had crossed the 20 million paid subscribers mark, it had grown from 17 million subscribers three months prior, which meant the platform rose by one million subscribers per month over that period. Announcing 27 million today, six months after its December announcement, would put the service at 1.16 million new subs per month, slightly ahead of last year’s pace. Spotify, its largest streaming competitor, announced in March it had reached 50 million paid subscribers.
Other music-related news arrived for the new iPhone operating system: the ability for friends to have a shared playlist into which they can take turns loading music. Also a new API Music Kit is available which allows apps to have full access to the Apple Music service. The WWDC presentation also cited a Nike exercise playlist that accessed Apple Music’s catalog, which was said to be at 40 million songs, as an example of how to use the new API.
When reached by Billboard, a rep for Apple declined to comment further.
