Apple Music now has 20 million paying subscribers

In September, during the unveiling of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, Apple announced Apple Music had 17 million concurrent subscribers.

According to a new report in Billboard, Apple has seen a sharp increase in adoption as the number of people paying for the streaming music service jumped by 15 percent, representing 3 million new paying users, to a total of 20 million subscribers.

Apple Music is currently available in over 100 countries, with some 50 percent of the service’s subscribers based outside of the United States, with Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice-president of internet software and products, specifically mentioning Canada, China, South Africa, Japan, Russia, Brazil and India as Apple Music’s best performing markets.

Apple signed a number of exclusive partnerships with several artists, including Drake, Taylor Swift, Future, Frank Ocean, DJ Khaled, and Travis Scott.

“It’s been quite a year. We were thrilled to see that we could take [artists’] passions and drive them all the way to No. 1. Chance the Rapper, who we put on Apple Music exclusively, hit the top 10 on the Billboard charts [based on streams alone], and I can’t recall that being done before,” said Cue.

Apple Music is available on iOS and Android. The service officially launched in Canada on June 30th, 2015. Subscribing costs $9.99 per month for individuals, while families of up to six people can use the service for $14.99 per month. Recently, Apple made Apple Music available to college and university students at the discounted price of $4.99 per month.

[source] Billboard [/source]