The Associated Press reports Apple has a somewhat ambitious goal of 100 million subscribers for its new “Apple Music” streaming music subscription service, likely to be unveiled at today’s WWDC 2015 Keynote address.
A subscriber base that large would trump competing services such as Spotify, Pandora, Deezer and others, which had a collective 41 million paid U.S. subscribers in 2014 per the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.
Apple Music is the Cupertino companies rebranded and revamped version of Beats Music, the streaming service Apple purchased last year. The service is expected to cost $10 per month, although Apple is likely to offer a three-month trial period to draw in listeners.
In comparison to Apple’s lofty 100 million subscriber goal, Beats Music had 303,000 subscribers as of December. Market leader Spotify currently boasts 4.7 million U.S. subscribers. However, Apple does have over 800 million users with iTunes accounts, and even if they only lure a small percentage of those users to the new streaming service, it would still add up to substantial numbers for the new service. The company plans to suggest an Apple Music subscription when those users purchase a song or album via the iTunes Store.
Apple is expected to unveil the new Apple Music service at today’s opening Keynote for this year’s WWDC 2015. MacTrast will be covering the keynote, beginning at 10AM Pacific/1PM Eastern time.
