Another bundle deal for Beats Electronics, as Apple Inc. is reportedly integrating its music subscription service, Beats Music, into iOS as early as March next year.  This move, Apple’s first attempt at capitalizing on its Beats purchase, will see the service available on hundreds-of-millions of iOS devices and will give Apple an advantage over competitors such as Spotify Ltd.

In the face of sharply declining iTunes downloads, preloading the service on iPhones and iPads will add a new revenue stream for Apple and help lock users into the Apple ecosystem.

Apple acquired Beats earlier this year, paying a whopping $3 billion for the startup –Apple’s biggest acquisition yet. While Beats Music’s subscriber base is very small in comparison with competitors –only 250,000 according to founder, Jimmy Iovine, this move by Apple could expose the service to as many as 800 million users—the combined number for iPhone, iPad and iPod sales since 2006.

While serving up Beats Music as a native iOS app gives it the massive exposure to Apple’s customer base, it is by no means a guarantee of success. iTunes Radio has been a native iOS app since iOS 7, but has not seen much success in challenging Internet radio market leader, Pandora. It is still only available in the U.S. and Australia.

According to the report, Beats Music will continue to be a paid subscription service, but will most likely be rebranded under the iTunes brand. Apple Watch is set to launch around the same time and we could see a strong play involving Apple Watch as part of Apple’s push into the subscription music streaming business.

Apple is not alone in its push to profit from the subscription music service business; Google Inc. recently expanded its music service footprint with the launch of YouTube Music Key which serves ad-free music videos for a monthly subscription fee of $9.99. Meanwhile Apple has petitioned music labels for a new pricing structure that will allow it to sell the Beats Music subscription service for less than the $10 per month it costs at the moment.

photo credit: Lotus Carroll via photopin cc