MANILA, Philippines – Apple CEO Tim Cook said on Tuesday, October 20, that 6.5 million people are paying for the Apple Music service.

In an interview with the Wall Steet Journal during its Digital Live conference, Cook pointed out that Apple Music has 15 million total subscribers, of whom 6.5 million are paying subscribers to the service, with another 8.5 million still on a free trial of Apple Music. 

In its analysis, The Verge noted that people are still starting to try out Apple Music in droves. Apple’s Eddie Cue told reporters in August that the service had 11 million trial subscribers. This means around 4 million new trial users have joined since Eddie Cue’s announcement.

By comparison, Spotify, developed in 2006, has a paying userbase of around 20 million, not including the number of free users.

That said, one wrinkle in this discussion lies in the unstated number of people who simply forgot to deactivate their credit cards before Apple Music charged them for October. As such, the number of paying customers using Apple Music may be skewed somewhat.

As the service is likely to acquire a new userbase in China, thanks to Apple Music going live there on September 30, it’ll be interesting to see how Apple Music will develop over time. – Rappler.com