UPDATED: Apple has just denied that it intends to close the music streaming business, Tom Neumayr, Apple spokesman, confirmed to Recode.
The business of selling music, in any format, changed a few years ago, especially after the arrival of the different streaming music services. Apple realized this fact with a long delay, or at least did not want to see it and took longer than necessary to react and launch its own music streaming service, which almost a year after its launch, has already managed to attract interest. of just over 13 million subscribers, subscribers that will grow rapidly thanks to the new plan for students that the company has just launched in several countries. This plan for students offers a reduction of 50% in the usual price of the service fee.
It seems that Apple has an aggressive plan in mind to completely end music downloads from iTunes in two yearsas reported by Digital Music News, citing sources related to the company's business relationships with record companies. Apple is considering lowering the download blind in three to four years, but discussions within Apple are unclear. They know that it has to be closed sooner or later, but they do not agree on the ideal moment to stop selling music in digital format.
The completion of the ability to download music from iTunes pIt could be staggered depending on the popularity of iTunes in each country, since in all countries there is not the same volume of downloading music in digital format. Two, three or four years, at the moment we do not know when Apple will completely lower the blind on a service that continues to allow the company to enter hundreds of millions of dollars every year, but that is in decline since the birth of music streaming. .
According to a report by Mark Mulligan, sales of music in digital format will go from 3.900 billion dollars in 2012 to just over 600 million in 2019. By 2020, this business will be 10 times less than 8 years ago. But another reason for closing this service would come from the confusion that seems to be causing the music that users buy with the music downloads that the Apple Music application allows.