Apple has an image that it’s for young and hip people, but the results of a new survey put its image in jeopardy. A consumer technology firm, Jackdaw Research, found in a new survey that older listeners are more likely to stick with Apple Music, says a report from Quartz.
Younger listeners cancel their Apple Music plans
Apple Music’s initial free trial ended recently, so it’s time to find out if the streaming service actually proved to be the game changer. The research firm chose 500 iPhone users for the survey and used the MicroHero service to find out their listening habits.
Apple Music’s three-month free trial had more young subscribers at the time of the service’s launch in June, but the majority who actually paid to stream the music were older subscribers, the survey found. When users below the age of 35 were asked about the status of their subscriptions, 62% of them said they had already cancelled it, while 67% of users in the age group of 35 and higher said they have become paying subscribers now.
Youth prefers free services
Jan Dawson, chief analyst at Jackdaw Research, said that since older people have more disposable income, the streaming service was able to retain more of them. This age group is also busier than youth. The fact that Apple Music is pre-installed on iOS devices and mixes owned tracks with streamed music gives it an advantage over competing services.
“When you have more money and less time, you’re more likely to spend more to get exactly what you want,” the expert said. On the other hand, young have a tendency of gravitating more toward ‘free,’ ad-supported services like YouTube and Spotify. Dawson said that tolerance for ads is higher among the young, and at the same time they have a higher tolerance to search for things they are looking for.
In May, research firm eMarketer reported that more than 70% of Spotify’s listeners were under the age of 35. The company said in June that 55 million active users stream music on the ad-supported tier, which doesn’t require them to make any payments, while the other 20 million subscribers use the paid platform for listening to music.
