In just six months, Apple's music streaming service has reportedly accrued more than 10 million paying subscribers.
It hit the 6.5 million users mark in October, meaning it has gained an average of around 42,000 paying customers every day since.
To put this into perspective, it took major rival Spotify six years to reach this milestone, but the site now has 20 million paying subscribers.
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In just six months, Apple's music streaming service (pictured across its devices) has reportedly accrued more than 10 million paying subscribers. It hit the 6.5 million user mark in October, meaning it has gained an average of around 42,000 paying customers every day since
The latest Apple figures were reported in the FT, although the firm has yet to confirm the number.
It comes less than two months after Apple boss Tim Cook announced the service netted more than 6.5 million paid users in its first four months.
Speaking at a technology conference organised by The Wall Street Journal in Laguna Beach in October, Cook said that an additional 8.5 million people are participating in a free trial of the Apple Music service.
At the time, this gave the service more than 15 million users in total, which Cook described as a successful debut.
Apple launched the Music streaming service and its Beats One radio station at the end of June.
It lets iPhone, iPad and iPod touch owners test the service with a 90-day free trial, which elapsed for the first users at the start of October.
Apple describes its the app as 'All the ways you love music. All in one place.'
It consists of three main features - a music service so users can stream songs, a global 24-hour radio station called Beats One and a social network for artists to share information with fans.
It also has a smart prediction service to recommend tracks.
The sharp increase in recent months may be due to the fact Apple recently killed off Beats Music.
The sharp increase in users of Apple Music in recent months may be due to the fact the tech giant recently killed off Beats Music (pictured). The tech giant pulled the plug on the service on 30 November when all subscriptions to the service were cancelled. It has been encouraging people to switch to Apple Music since
| Service | Cost |
|---|---|
| Apple Music | Apple Music will cost $9.99 a month or $14.99 for a family plan (up to six family members) - both with a three-month free trial |
| Tidal | $9.95-a-month for standard sound quality and $19.99-a-month for 'lossless high fidelity sound quality' (£9.99 and £19.99 in the UK) |
| Spotify | Free level with adverts, Premium $9.99-a-month service (£9.99 in the UK) |
| Beats Music | $9.99-a-month or $99 per year |
| Pandora | $4.99-a-month for Pandora's ad-free internet radio service |
| Deezer | Free with adverts, $9.99-a-month for Premium+ (£9.99 in the UK) |
| Rdio | Free with adverts, Rdio Unlimited costs $9.99 (£9.99 in the UK) and US users can also get Rdio Select for $3.99 a month with limited downloads |
Beats Music was set up by rapper Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine, and Apple bought the brand in 2014.
The California-based tech giant pulled the plug out the service Music on 30 November when all subscriptions to the service were cancelled.
Apple has been encouraging subscribers to move their profiles to its own music subscription service ever since.
To put this into perspective, it took major rival Spotify (pictured) six years to reach the same milestone, but it now has 20 million paying subscribers according to recent official figures
APPLE MUSIC - DAILYMAIL.COM'S VERDICT
The service first asks what kind of music you like
Apple's streaming music service, called Apple Music, has finally gone live - and it will have rivals like Spotify and Tidal quaking in their boots.
The app is automatically installed on phones as part of an iOS update released this morning - meaning if your phone is up to date, you'll already have it.
It comes with a highly publicised three month free trial, after which Apple will charge $9.99 (or £9.99) per month for service - on a part with its rivals.
The first time you use the app, it'll ask you for your favourite genres and artists, to help it start to recommended music for you.
Once that's done, you're dropped into the new home screen, which shows you your recommended music.
At the bottom are a row of icons showing you what's new, listen to Apple's Beats 1 radio, see Connect, the social network for artists (which so far seems lacking in content) and see your playlist and the music on your phone.
When playing, there's an option to save music offline, and you can mix music already on your phone with streaming or downloaded tracks.
Sound quality is very good, but not great - it's comparable to Spotify, but not a patch on Tidal's high quality $14.99 HiFi option.
However, for most users, especially those using Apple's own white earpods, it'll be more than adequate.
Overall, after a few minutes of confusion, you'll be at home with the app.
Beats 1 is a superbly curated radio station that could become the hidden gem of Apple Music, but otherwise Apple Music doesn't really have any revolutionary features that will have its competitors quaking - but the key is that it doesn't need to.
It has the basics incredible well covered, and for the vast majority of users, that's more than enough.
There are some questions over certain features - only time will tell if areas such as the Connect social network are used.
But most important of all, Apple Music just works.
Given the firm's history with cloud based services, it could have made things far too complicated, but the balance is just right, and focuses on listening to music and not the technical details of what's stored where.
It's biggest rival, Spotify, in many ways has a more innovative app, which it has had time to polish and develop - attracting over 70m users in the process (with around 20m of those paying).
However, ease of use is key to Apple, and its three month free trial is a masterstroke.
The crunch for Apple will come in three months, when the initial trials run out - and for a lot of users, I'd wager that they'll pay up and stream their music simply because its easy, the app is already there, and Apple already has their credit card in the iTunes Store.
Apple may be a little late to the streaming game, but the Music app shows that, once again, the firm is set to change the way the masses listen to music.
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