Apple Music just revealed that it has reached the milestone of 100 million songs on its platform.
The service, which originally launched in June 2015, announced the new stat in a blog post on Monday (October 3).
In the post, Apple Music’s Global Head of Editorial Rachel Newman, writes that, “Twenty-one years on from the invention of iTunes and the debut of the original iPod, we’ve gone from 1,000 songs in your pocket to 100,000x that on Apple Music.”
Newman added: “It’s phenomenal growth by any metric. The entire history, present, and future of music is at your fingertips or voice command.
“More music than you can listen to in a lifetime, or several lifetimes. More music than any other platform. Simply the biggest collection of music, in any format, ever.
“One hundred million songs — it’s a number that will continue to grow and exponentially multiply. But it’s more than just a number, representing something much more significant — the tectonic shift in the business of music making and distribution over these past two decades.”
Apple Music rival Spotify, meanwhile, which launched in 2008, states on its website that it has “over 80 million tracks, including more than 4 million podcast titles” on its own platform.
Spotify is the biggest music subscription service globally, with 433 million monthly active users, including 188 million subscribers, across 183 markets.
Apple doesn’t break out subscriber numbers for Apple Music. In July, Apple revealed that it had reached 860 million paid subscriptions across all of its services.
Apple Music confirmed back in June 2019 that its service had passed the milestone of 60 million subscribers. In June this year, J.P Morgan said that it expects Apple Music’s subscriber number to hit 110 million by 2025.
Elsewhere in the blog post, Apple Music’s Newman adds that each day, “over 20,000 singers and songwriters” are delivering new songs to Apple Music.
In February, Spotify revealed that more than 60,000 new tracks are now being ingested by its own platform every single day.
“One hundred million songs — it’s a number that will continue to grow and exponentially multiply. But it’s more than just a number, representing something much more significant — the tectonic shift in the business of music making and distribution over these past two decades.”
Rachel Newman, Apple Music
Newman added: “This isn’t just an opportunity to reflect on how far we’ve come, but also a moment to look forward to the work we have left to do. At Apple Music, human curation has always been the core to everything we do, both in ways you can see, like our editorial playlists; and ways you can’t, like the human touch that drives our recommendation algorithms.
“Now more than ever, we know that investment in human curation will be key in making us the very best at connecting artists and audiences. With such a huge expanse of songs, we know you need someone there to guide you through. Gone are the days of hitting shuffle on your library: Now it’s on us to help you discover new favorites and rediscover forgotten gems, whether it’s one of our expert radio hosts lighting your path, or a handcrafted playlist.”
Apple Music also announced a new audio series today, called Apple Music Today, that it says “will spotlight a different song every single day, seven days a week”.Music Business Worldwide
