Apple Music was launched June 30, 2015. As we can see in this trend from the experts at Asymco, it is there has been a vast difference in adoption curves of Spotify, the sector’s leader, versus Apple’s conversion of its iTunes music store over to this one-price-fits-all model.
The major question here is whether Apple Music will continue to climb in adoption, either converting fresh consumers over to the subscription-based model or potentially cannibalizing Spotify’s existing business.
Already there are 45 million subscribers to music streaming, a small portion of the music-listening population. The question is whether unit-based sales can be replaced with this new model enough to support artists, past, present, and especially future. The industry will be interesting to watch for years to come as a result.