As Apple’s services division grows in importance, the company’s newest services — Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, Apple News+ and Apple Card — are failing to bring in significant revenue, according to a new report.
Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman writes that, while services likely will increase yet again when Apple announces its Q3 earnings this week, most of these gains will come from older services like the App Store.
Drawing on one analyst’s findings, Gurman suggests that just 15% of eligible customers signed up for Apple TV+. Meanwhile, he writes that subscriber growth proved “weaker than expected” for Apple Arcade, based on reports from developers.
As far as Apple Card goes, Gurman notes that the Nilson Report’s February verdict was that Apple partner Goldman Sachs “accumulated about $2 billion in credit lines” since Apple Card’s launch. Although that might sound like a large number, it’s a “fraction of other co-branded” credit cards.
Finally, Gurman writes that the Apple News+ service “may be the least successful” one of them all. Publishers consistently complain about lower-than-expected revenue from Apple’s subscription news service.
Apple services: Hit or miss?
Bloomberg‘s Tuesday report is, in essence, an aggregation of other reporting on Apple services. But it does underline how Apple, if these figures prove accurate, could be struggling to score big with new services. At least so far.
Fortunately, it seems that App Store business is booming. App analytics platform Sensor Tower says the App Store generated $32.8 billion for developers in the first half of 2020. That’s an increase of more than 20% from a year earlier. Paid subscriptions in the April through June quarter reportedly topped 515 million.
In keeping with its usual tactic, Apple might not give exact subscriber numbers for its new services during this Thursday’s earnings call. However, the company will need to give overall revenue figures for its services division. Since that number likely will mix new services and established ones like the App Store, working out exactly where the revenue comes from could prove tricky. But hopefully Apple will give some indication of how its various verticals are doing.
Which Apple services do you use regularly? Let us know in the comments below.
Source: Bloomberg
