Apple Music hikes monthly subscription by 30% from N1,000 to N1,300

Tech giant Apple has announced a 30 per cent hike in its Apple Music subscription plan for Nigerian users, effective from June 22, 2025. The new price hike is the first in more than two years as the company last increased its Apple Music plan in November 2022.

In an email sent to customers on Monday, the company noted that it is raising the Individual plan from N1,000 per month to N1,300 per month. While the company did not state the reason for the new development, recent Naira depreciation against the dollar is perceived as a top cause.

“Apple is raising the price of this subscription from ₩1,000.00 per month to 1,300.00 per month. Your subscription will automatically renew for ₩1,300.00 per month starting on 22 June unless you cancel at least one day before,” the email reads.

Compared to Apple Music’s last price hike in November 2022, where the company introduced a 10 per cent adjustment from N900 to N1,000 per month, the new 30 per cent hike presents a major increase.

Apple Music, launched in June 2015, is a music and video streaming service developed by Apple that allows users to stream over 90 million songs, access curated playlists, and enjoy exclusive content. 

The service also includes the Beats 1 radio station and integration with the Apple ecosystem, making it a popular choice among Apple device users. Apple Music offers several subscription plans tailored to different user needs, including Individual, Family, and Student plans. Each plan comes with its unique features and pricing, making it accessible to a broad audience.

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Move to modify Apple Music’s user experience

In a move to bolster user experience on the platform, Apple Music introduced a new “audio wellness” collection of songs called Sound Therapy in March. Designed in partnership with Universal Music Group (UMG), the feature combines songs that subscribers already know with other sound waves that promote focus, relaxation, and sleep.

According to the company, songs may include auditory beats or colored noise of sound waves where the intensity varies at different frequencies and categorised by colours. The therapy song addition comes amid the recently launched Apple Music Chill radio station, offering sounds that are also interspersed with mindful moments and calming stories.

Apple Music Chill is a radio station on the platform dedicated to providing a relaxing and calming listening experience and designed as a sanctuary of sound, offering a continuous flow of chill music across various genres, interspersed with “mindful moments” to help listeners find calm and focus.

Data by Sensor Tower showed that the platform is growing in the country, though still behind Boomplay, Spotify, and Audiomack. Apple Music’s push into Nigeria and Africa has been an intentional part of its international growth. Last year, it expanded its offerings from 12 African countries to 37. Karl Anderson, Apple Music’s head of music in Africa, has stressed the company’s focus on local curation, playlisting, and ground-level support for local artists in each country.

“It’s about serving up a hyper-local editorial experience for our subscribers on the continent. We have playlists covering every possible genre, region, and country, we’ve recruited some of Africa’s top creatives – designers, photographers – to make sure that the artwork that we’re serving up feels authentic to those particular countries or genres,” the company said in January.

The report also explained that Apple Music had a consistent revenue stream, starting at $331 and gradually increasing to $401 by the end of March 2024. Weekly downloads remained steady between 11,000 and 14,ooo while active users were around the 40,ooo mark throughout the quarter, with slight fluctuations.

Since its 2015 debut (initially in Nigeria and South Africa), Apple Music has experienced growth. In Nigeria, streams grew 119 per cent year over year, and subscribers doubled. Apple Music is becoming a continental rival of Boomplay. By the end of 2020, both companies boasted around 140,000 subscribers each.