Recently, Apple Music announced that there are now 100 million songs available on its service.
The program, which debuted in June 2015, revealed the new statistic on Monday in a blog post (October 3).
“Twenty-one years after the creation of iTunes and the introduction of the original iPod, we’ve gone from 1,000 songs in your pocket to 100,000x that on Apple Music,” writes Rachel Newman, the global head of editorial at Apple Music, in the article.
By any criteria, the growth is tremendous, continued Newman. At your fingertips or on voice command, the complete past, present, and future of music are available.
More music than you could ever hope to hear in your lifetime or lifetimes to come. over any other platform, the most music. Simply the largest music library, regardless of format, ever.
“There are now 100 million songs, and that number is only going to increase enormously. The tectonic upheaval in the music industry over the past 20 years is represented by this number, which is considerably more significant than just a number.
While this is going on, Apple Music’s rival Spotify, which debuted in 2008, claims to have “over 80 million tracks, including more than 4 million podcast titles,” on its own platform.
With 188 million subscribers and 433 million monthly active users across 183 regions, Spotify is the largest music subscription service globally.
Apple Music subscribers are not separately counted by the company. Apple announced in July that 860 million people had subscribed to all of its services for a fee.
In June 2019, Apple Music announced that it has reached the milestone of 60 million members. J.P Morgan predicted that by 2025, Apple Music will have 110 million subscribers. This prediction was made in June of this year.
In a different section of the blog post, Apple Music’s Newman explains that “over 20,000 singers and songwriters” submit new songs to Apple Music every day.
Spotify reported in February that its own platform is currently ingesting more than 60,000 new tunes 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
“This isn’t only a chance to think back on how far we’ve gone, but also a moment to look forward to the work we have left to do,” Newman continued. At Apple Music, human curation has always been at the center of everything we do. This is true in both visible and invisible ways, such as the human touch that informs our recommendation algorithms and our editorial playlists.
“We are more aware than ever that investing in human curation will be essential to improving our ability to connect artists with consumers. We understand that you need someone to lead you through the vast selection of tunes. Shuffle is a thing of the past; we’re here to help you find new favorites and re-discover lost treasures, whether it’s through a hand-crafted playlist or one of our knowledgeable radio hosts.
Today, Apple Music also revealed a brand-new audio program called Apple Music Today, which, according to the company, “will include a different song every single day, seven days a week.”