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Apple Music reaches an all-time number of paid subscribers for its music service, announced the officials on Friday. "The Talk Show," a podcast by John Gruber, aired an special interview with the senior vice presidents of Apple, Craig Federighi and Eddy Cue. Amongst other things, the duo publicized that Apple Music "just passed over 11 million Apple Music subscribers." The story of Apple reaching an 11 million mark is balancing the Financial Times story earlier in January that declared a 10 million subscriber count. Achieving unparalleled growth for a streaming service that is still young, Apple yet again proves its mettle in the industry.

"It's good news that Apple is making streaming work, but it is also going to accelerate the decline of downloads," Media analyst Mark Mulligan told the Financial Times. He added that at Apple Music's current rate, it had "the potential to be the leading music subscription service sometime in 2017."

Despite the raging numbers for Apple, Spotify, the competitor in music streaming space, seems unfettered. In June last year, the latter crossed 20 million subscriber mark and is way ahead of Apple. However, as impressive as these numbers seem, it fails to point out that Apple has attained this goal much faster than any other streaming service, as The Christian Science Monitor reported in October.

Spotify was introduced in US in July 2011 and reached its 10 million paid subscribers three years later in May 2014. But, Apple reached the same goal in a measly seven months of launching the service!

But Spotify and Apple have different business models. Former lures the subscribers with free service and offers them to pay for the additional service. With 20 million paid subscribers, Spotify has 75 million free users, said The Verge. However, Apple started with a three-month free trial which will soon become paid for most customers.