Apple Music content is now available at a discounted rate for up to 48 months for all college and university students in Canada and 24 other countries, according to the Financial Post. In September, the iPhone maker announced that Apple Music has 17 million paying customers, an increase from 15 million in June.
Pushing Apple Music globally
Apple Music’s student membership pricing was launched in May. At that time, it was available for users in Australia, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. Customers who are no longer students or who have had student subscriptions for the past 48 hours will be rolled back to full price subscriptions.
Further expansion brings student pricing to Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Chile, Colombia, Finland, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Switzerland, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates.
Apple is working in collaboration with UNiDAYS to verify student enrollment details. The Financial Post notes that students in Canada and other locales can verify their eligibility just by signing up for Apple Music through the Wi-Fi network on their campus or via their school email address.
In the initial rollout, the iPhone maker enabled users to convert their account to a student account via iTunes or the music app on their iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, PC or Android. Some have also been speculating that Apple will soon drop its regular subscription fees by 20% to compete with streaming rivals like Amazon Music Unlimited.
All set to face rivals
Apple has made several modifications and upgrades to its music streaming service since it was launched in June 2015. Most recently, the company made major improvement in September to coincide with the release of iOS 10, giving more thrust to human curation, discovery and live radio stations.
Rival Google also revamped its music service, Google Play Music, by adding machine learning and artificial intelligence at its center. Also Spotify, which has a subscriber base of 40 million paying subscribers, is focusing on a hybrid of algorithms and human-curated playlists, says the Financial Post. Like Apple’s music service, Spotify also offers a $4.99 student plan in the U.S., but it has yet to expand internationally.
Apple’s services division, of which Apple Music is a part, brought delight for the company when it reported 24% growth in its fourth quarter earnings. It was significant from Apple’s point of view, lowering its dependence on hardware, which could not ring any surprise last quarter.
