For a change, Apple is playing catch-up in a technology market.
Last year revenue for Ascap—the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers—surpassed $1 billion for the first time. Ascap also tracked 500 billion performances of songs last year. A big part of the success: streaming music. The actual streaming of tracks surged 54 percent from a 106 billion songs in 2013 to 164 billion in 2014.
If Apple's download-based iTunes empire isn't finished yet, it's certainly threatened. Consumers are showing a willingness to make the switch—and psychological shift—from actual ownership of music to subscription-based streaming. And Apple knows it.
Beats
The Beats Music app
When Apple paid $3 billion last year for Beats Music, it wasn't just for the premium headphones market that Beats dominates. Next week Apple is expected to unveil its new version of Beats' streaming music service at its Worldwide Developers Conference.
Recent reports indicated that Apple had failed to convince record companies to allow it to offer a streaming service at a better price point than the existing players, a sign that with the rise of streaming it was harder for Apple to command the respect—even deference—it has come to expect.
Apple may offer a free trial period to hook users, and with 800 million people with iTunes accounts, converting just a small percentage could be a windfall, quickly making Apple the leader in streaming music. But the company has its work cut out for it. While Apple hasn't always been first—it's just usually been regarded as best—in launching new products, the streaming music space already has a significant number of successful options.
Here are the main competitors in the streaming-music market with a head start on Apple.
