Apple Music subscribers cross 10 mn

The number of subscribers of Apple Music has crossed 10 million.

According to the Financial Times,  the on-demand music streaming service from the iPhone maker was launched only six months ago, following the $3.2-billion acquisition of Beats Audio in May.

"We've had a long relationship with music, and music has had a rich history of change, some of which we've played a part in," Apple CEO Tim Cook said at the launch.

"It's good news that Apple is making streaming work but it is also going to accelerate the decline of downloads," Mark Mulligan, music industry analyst with Midia Research told the Financial Times.

Meanwhile, Apple had been rapidly gaining on rival Spotify, and at its current growth rate had "the potential to be the leading music subscription service sometime in 2017".

Spotify counts 20 million paid subscribers and 75 million users overall, according to its website.

When Spotify launched in 2008, physical sales of CDs in the US alone stood at 428.4 million. The figure had almost halved in 2014, and streaming service was cited by Statista as one of the impacting factors.

According to commentators, Apple Music indeed seemed to be a great success. The Cupertino giant seemed to have enrolled more users in its six month run compared to what rivals had been able to achieve in six years.

They added while many reasons could be attributed to the growth of Apple in the music-streaming business, the company's strategy indeed seemed to centered around timing more than anything else.

According to Mark Mulligan, music industry analyst with Midia Research However, Apple's strategy was a strategy that could bring Apple to the top of the music streaming industry and also be the cause of the decline of downloads on iTunes.