11 million people have already signed up to trial Apple's music streaming service

Eleven million people have signed up to trial Apple's new streaming service, Apple Music, one month after its launch, executive Eddy Cue told USA Today.

It's important to remember, though, that nobody has actually spent any money on Apple Music yet. The 11 million customers are all signed up to the service's three-month free trial. The big test for Apple Music will be keeping people subscribed once they have to start paying £9.99 every month to listen.

Of those 11 million people, Cue said that 2 million are testing out the family share plan, which costs £14.99 per month when the trial ends.

Cue told USA Today that Apple was "thrilled" by the numbers. And Jimmy Iovine, another Apple employee, said he was "pleasantly shocked" by how well the service has done.

By comparison, Spotify hit 20 million paying users back in June. It also said that it has over 75 million active users. Apple probably isn't worried about the 75 million free users, but sees the 20 million figure as the one to beat.

Apple's aim with Apple Music isn't just to beat Spotify. It wants to attract 100 million subscribers, far more than any other streaming service. That figure is more than double every other streaming service in the US put together.

Cue also told USA Today that the App Store did $1.7 billion (£1 billion) in transactions in July, a new record for the company. He said that it had "particular momentum" in China. The total amount paid out to developers is now $33 billion (£21 billion), Apple says, up from $25 billion (£16 billion) at the end of last year.