Apple Music has 6.5 million paid members for its $10 per month streaming music plan. That number is coming directly from Apple's CEO.

Tim Cook, Apple's CEO said that over 6.5 million people have decided to keep Apple Music after their trial was over and become paying subscribers, CNet reports. Cook says an additional 8.5 million people are participating in the free 90-day trial of Apple Music.

"I'm finding personally that I'm discovering a whole lot of music that I wasn't listening to before," Cook said. "I think it's fabulous. And to have over 15 million on there, and 6.5 million in the paid category, I'm really happy about it, and I think the runway here is really good." 

Apple Music is a new service that Apple introduced to compete with other streaming music services like Spotify and Pandora. Apple Music's playlists are created by music experts instead of automatically by a computer. There is also a 24 hour music station called Beats 1 and a way for users to interact with artists called Connect.

Cook said that Apple Music has distinct advantages over Spotify in the way that music is delivered to listeners. Spotify has 20 million paid monthly subscribers.

"We have music experts, just like the DJ when we were growing up...that are deciding what's next," Cook said. "It brings the art back in music."

When Apple introduced Apple Music, they offered a three-month trial for users to get used to the service and hopefully get hooked. In August, about a month after launching, Apple said it had 11 million trial members, USA Today reports. That means a large amount of those trial members canceled their plans before they would be charged $10 per month to keep it. Some users who forgot to cancel their free trial plan, could still cancel after receiving their first bill for the service.