Musician’s blog, The Trichordist, has posted a leaked royalties report allegedly showing the first quarter royalties paid by the Beats Music service to musicians. If the report is genuine, it indicates the service’s total number of subscribers stands at a mere 110,992.
As Business Insider notes, there are a couple of complications that make it hard to determine the actual number of paid subscribers. First, the majority of subscriptions are family packages, where a single payment of $14.99 a month allows up to five users to access the service. The total number of users will thus be higher than the raw subscription figures.
Another bit of information to throw into the mix: AT&T has offered free 90-day subscriptions to its customers, so that means that many of those counted in the subscriber numbers may have paid $0.
If accurate, the report indicates that Apple is certainly not buying Beats for its subscriber numbers. However, there is still the attraction of a well-though-of streaming technology, an excellent hardware business, music industry expertise and contacts, and more.
The $3.2 billion acquisition of Beats Electronics by Apple is expected to be announced sometime this week.
