Photo: Beats Music
According to new figures from app analytics firm App Annie, Beats is currently trailing behind industry leaders Pandora and Spotify. In September, both of these services racked up more downloads and earned more revenue than Beats, across both the App Store and Google Play.
Beats was the ninth most downloaded music app in September, with once again Pandora and Spotify taking the lead — but also the likes of Shazam, SoundCloud and even Apple’s own GarageBand receiving more downloads.
To put these figures in some context, back in May Beats had 250,000 subscribers versus Spotify’s 10 million paying members: a considerable difference, although not taking into account Beats’ relative youth as a music streaming service.
It’s not all bad news, however. Beats is steadily improving its position — having climbed up from the no. 6 spot in August in revenue. While there are reports that Apple will rebrand the subscription service in February, ditching the Beats Music name so as to keep Beats a hardware-only brand, there’s no doubt that Apple is concentrating more on its streaming music service.
One recent report noted that Apple is currently lobbying music labels for extensive price cuts that would bring the cost of a Beats Music subscription from its current $10 price point all the way down to $5. This is based on Apple’s research indicating that the average iTunes user spends $60 per year on downloaded music, which works out at $5 per month.
While any price cuts would also have to be made available to Beats’ rivals as well, this would certainly help make Beats Music more competitive.
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