Apple jazzed as 11 million sign up for music trial

Company ‘thrilled’ as 11M sign up for trial

Company chasing Spotify, the reigning streaming champ.

One month after unveiling its new streaming-music service, Apple has locked in 11 million trial members, company executives told USA TODAY.

“We’re thrilled with the numbers so far,” says Eddy Cue, Ap- ple’s senior vice president of Internet software and services, adding that of that sum, 2 million have opted for the more lucrative family plan at $14.99 a month for up to six people.

Apple Music, which launched June 30, costs $9.99 a month for individual access to 30 million songs as well as human-curation playlists and a live radio station. There’s an initial free-trial period of three months. Assuming all the trial memberships are converted into paying customers come October, Apple would already boast half the paid memberships of reigning streaming champ Spotify, launched nearly a decade ago.

July also brought a fiscal highwater mark for the company’s App Store, which did a record $1.7 billion in transactions, “with particular momentum in China,” says Cue. That brings the total amount paid to app developers to $33 billion, up from $25 billion at the end of 2014.

Those bright numbers stand in contrast to the recent stumble of Apple’s normally high-flying stock (AAPL), which has fallen some 14% off a $134.54 high on April 28, erasing nearly $115 billion in value. Investors are concerned that Apple’s lucrative smartphone business in the U.S. is reaching a saturation point, while the promise of a booming China market could be affected by growing handset competition in Asia.

The bulk of the $50 billion in revenue Apple posted at the end of the last quarter comes from hardware sales, namely iPhone and iPad. While revenues from app remain small by comparison, clearly building that business could provide the company with steady profits as consumers increasingly live their lives through their smartphones.

By and large, Apple Music has gotten favorable reviews from the tech-set, with most of the criticisms anchored not to content but functionality.

Apple is rolling out a broad marketing campaign to promote Apple Music over the coming months as the trial period comes to an end, featuring billboard, TV and radio ads.