Apple Music hits 50m subscribers, fast catching up to Spotify

Apple Music has now hit 50 million global subscribers, after reaching 40 million in April.

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook made the announcement on the Bloomberg Television program The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations.

Cook said that the 50 million is made up of paid members and trial users, but didn’t provide a specific breakdown.

However published reports say trial users make up 8 million.

Its main rival Spotify has 75 million subscribers as of May 2018. The figure was 71 million in December 2017.

Spotify subscription growth has slowed down but analysts predict it will still reach 90 million by end of 2018.

Its chief Daniek Ek expects greater premium paying numbers from its rejigged free service.

Since January 2018, Apple has been adding 4 million per month.

Cook also spoke on Bloomberg TV about Apple’s plans for creating original film and television content and the much-waited streaming video service, although details were thin on the ground.

It has already green-lighted 12 projects since last October from the $1 billion content fund it set up last year.

Unlike Netflix, Apple is going for a quality-over-content, something that Cook underlined in his comments.

We are very interested in the content business. We will be playing in a way that is consistent with our brand.

“We’re not ready to give any details on it yet. But it’s clearly an area of interest.”

Its new original programming division, led by Sony TV veterans Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht, is working on a reboot of Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories and a morning show drama from Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon.