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Apple said Tuesday that it will sell bundles of its subscription services, including music and television, this fall as it faces increasing competition from rivals to attract and retain customers.
The most affordable package, called Apple One, will bundle the company’s subscription services into the video game, music and video streaming service Apple TV + and provide 50 gigabytes of cloud storage starting at $ 14.95 a month.
Additional packages include a family plan and one that has more company services, including the new Apple Fitness +, which streams workouts. The most expensive plan is $ 29.95 a month.
“Apple One makes it easy to get these services and find the right plan for you,” said Lori Malm, director of services, in a presentation Tuesday.
Analysts said the pool will help entice customers to try more services and reduce people’s unsubscribe rate. Before Apple One, customers subscribed to each individual service, with Apple Music costing $ 9.99 a month and Apple TV + $ 4.99 a month.
“It could make it easier to sell to consumers,” said Neil Cybart, founder of Above Avalon, a site that analyzes Apple’s business.
Cybart said the package will also provide a less popular boost to Apple services, such as Apple News +, the company’s news subscription service; and Apple Arcade, which offers access to more than 100 games.
“If you bundle them into Apple Music and Apple TV + bundles, the benefit to Apple would be that those two services will see more adoption, more usage,” Cybart said.
Apple still makes the most money from its iPhones, but services have become an increasingly important part of its business. The services segment in the third fiscal quarter had more than $ 13 billion in sales, approximately 22% of the company’s total revenue. Last year, Apple launched its Apple TV + video streaming service, investing significant amounts of money in exclusive shows and movies.
Cybart estimates that Apple TV + has between 25 and 30 million subscribers. The platform’s shows have garnered 18 Emmy nominations, including several for the critically acclaimed drama “The Morning Show.”
“Apple is the real new kid on the block when it comes to paid video streaming,” Cybart said. “It’s a legitimately good start. … Because they’re literally coming from zero subs, whatever they’re doing, it could end up having a bigger impact. ”
Unlike other companies with streaming platforms, Apple makes most of its revenue through the sale of iPhones. Last year, the company offered buyers of new Apple devices a free one-year subscription to Apple TV +.
But other analysts point out that Apple TV + subscribers still fall short compared to larger competitors like Netflix and Disney +.
“They’re not shooting at the end of the day,” said Brahm Eiley, president of the Convergence Research Group.
When Apple TV + launched last year, it started with just nine shows.
“The biggest problem for them is that they have limited content. It can burn its contents pretty quickly, ”Eiley said. “Other players have submitted a lot of content.”
Some analysts have questioned Apple’s long-term commitment to original productions, considering that it requires a massive capital investment to compete against bigger players like Netflix.
“There is no really big return on investment for Apple right now,” Eiley said. “So we are not clear about Apple’s true strategy, aside from selling more boxes.”
Apple on Tuesday announced more video streaming links to its hardware devices with Apple Fitness +, a new $ 9.99 monthly subscription service that shows video workouts.
Apple Fitness + works with Apple Watch and displays the real-time fitness analyzes collected by the watch on the screen.
For example, a customer can upload the fitness video to his iPad; Your Apple Watch tracks the calories you are burning and that is projected on the screen. People who buy a new Apple Watch will get three months of Apple Fitness + free.
The Cupertino, California-based tech giant also announced the Apple Watch Series 6, which will allow users to track their blood oxygen levels through the smartwatch. The watch starts at $ 399 and will be available on September 18.
In the past, the Apple Watch required owning an iPhone. A new feature will allow people in the same family to trust the iPhone of a single family member to support Apple Watches used by older relatives or children.
Apple’s biggest competitor in music streaming, Spotify, criticized its rival on Tuesday, saying: “Apple is using its dominant position and unfair practices to disadvantage competitors and deprive consumers by favoring its own services.”
Apple owns the hardware and software that operates iPhones, as well as manages the mobile application store that provides applications for the iPhone. When users make payments in applications made by outside companies directly through the Apple App Store, Apple in many cases gets a 30% cut in revenue, which some companies believe is unfair. Apple has said that it uses this revenue to maintain the App Store.
“We call on the competition authorities to act urgently to restrain Apple’s anti-competitive behavior,” Spotify said in a statement.
This disagreement is one of several issues in a legal dispute between Epic Games and Apple over purchases on the popular game “Fortnite.”
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