Beats Music’s First Hundred Days ⇥ billboard.com

Yinka Adegoke and Alex Pham of Billboard:

Label sources estimate the Beats Music subscriber count to be in the “low six figures.” Beats representatives declined to comment for this story, but company insiders argue that subscriptions and consumer reaction has met expectations and that the “millions of people” trying out the service exceeded internal projections.

The editorial portions of this story describe Beats’ numbers as “disappointing”, but getting a few-hundred-thousand paying subscribers in three months sounds pretty great to me. Consider the article’s own comparison with Spotify:

Spotify has just over 2 million subscribers in the United States, according to people familiar with the company’s data. They point out that it took two-and-a-half years of educating the U.S. market and giving away millions of dollars’ worth of music for subscribers to reach that number.

Beats is only available in the US, and it’s only been a few months since its launch. I see a lot of expansion potential.