Apple Music racked up more than 54.5M monthly users in 2015, study says

According to a year end report from consumer research firm Nielsen, Apple Music was one of the most popular smartphone apps of 2015, and with more than 54.5 million monthly users ranked among offerings from Facebook and Google.

Apple's streaming music service came in at No. 9 on Nielsen's Top Smartphone Apps of 2015 chart, notching over 54.5 million average monthly users in the U.S. from January to October. That number is up 26 percent compared to the same time last year, a growth rate second only to Facebook Messenger.

It should be noted that Nielsen's metrics represent average monthly users and do not reflect actual subscriber numbers. The most recent statistics came in October when Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed some 15 million people were using the streaming service, 6.5 million of whom as paying subscribers. Those numbers likely changed when Apple Music launched in beta on Google's Android operating system less than a month later.

Facebook Messenger enjoyed the highest growth rate of 2015 with a 31 percent year-over-year change to end October with 96.4 million users per month. Instagram gained 23 percent from last year with just over 55.4 million monthly users, while Apple Maps managed a 16 percent boost with 46.4 million users.

Overall, Facebook was this year's top smartphone app with 126.7 million users, followed by YouTube's 97.6 million users and Facebook Messenger. Google's branded apps dominated the top 10, going fourth through seventh place with Google Search netting 95 million users, Google Play at 89.7 million, Google Maps at 87.8 million and Gmail with 75.1 million users.

Google's strong showing is in part thanks to Android's command over the U.S. smartphone market. Nielsen notes 53 percent of users polled accessed apps from an Android device, compared to 43 percent for Apple's iPhone.

9 Comments

red oak 1104 comments · 13 Years

About 8 years ago

What about iMessage, FaceTime, Photos, Apple App Store? Likely this report has a lot of scope issues

gerrit 29 comments · 11 Years

This article seems pretty far off base.. there is no "Apple Music" app on the iPhone. There is a Apple Music section of the 'Music' app. Since Nielson uses surveys to calculate app usage (they can't place trackers in Apple's apps), the 54.5M number is probably people who use the Music app on their phone and has nothing at all to do with "Apple Music" the service.

muppetry 3319 comments · 13 Years

gerrit said:

This article seems pretty far off base.. there is no "Apple Music" app on the iPhone. There is a Apple Music section of the 'Music' app. Since Nielson uses surveys to calculate app usage (they can't place trackers in Apple's apps), the 54.5M number is probably people who use the Music app on their phone and has nothing at all to do with "Apple Music" the service.

They don't use surveys - they use installed monitoring software on the devices.

kenjitzw 2 comments · 10 Years

How is Apple Music up 26% year over year when it is less than 1 year old?

steven n. 1229 comments · 13 Years

muppetry said:

gerrit said:

This article seems pretty far off base.. there is no "Apple Music" app on the iPhone. There is a Apple Music section of the 'Music' app. Since Nielson uses surveys to calculate app usage (they can't place trackers in Apple's apps), the 54.5M number is probably people who use the Music app on their phone and has nothing at all to do with "Apple Music" the service.

They don't use surveys - they use installed monitoring software on the devices.

You're saying Apple allows third party monitoring of the Music App on iTunes?