While Apple TV+ reportedly remains beset by steep annual losses and limited scale, signups have recently increased dramatically following inclusion of the platform in the Amazon Prime Video Channels app marketplace starting in October.
As first reported by weekly newsletter Next TMT citing data provided by research company Antenna, monthly U.S. Apple TV+ signups more than doubled from 1.44 million in September, the month before Amazon’s app marketplace started selling the platform, to nearly 3 million in January, before leveling off slightly to 2.87 million in February. And February gross additions were still up 99% YoY.
The news comes following an anonymously sourced report last week by The Information, which said that Apple TV+ is still losing $1 billion annually after being in the market for more than five years. The article also said that Apple was spending $5 billion a year on content for its subscription video-on-demand service, before moderating its production outlay by about $500 million last year.
Following up on The Information’s report, Reuters reported data from research company Visible Alpha, placing the Apple TV+ subscriber ranks at only around 40.4 million customers. Consider that Disney+, which launched almost the same week back in early-November 2019, has 124.6 million subscribers worldwide.
Will the uptick in gross additions turn things around for Apple TV+? Amazon Prime Video Channels recoups as much as 50% of revenue from subscriptions sold through its platform for more niche services that don’t have as much leverage as Apple does. But Amazon Channels is known to be one of the most effective distribution drivers in the premium and niche SVOD business.
Despite the uptick in domestic gross additions, Apple TV+ faces some of the highest churn in the U.S. premium SVOD business, as Antenna also notes.
But Apple TV+ also has a distinct brand, known for still hoisting increasingly rare “water-cooler” hits, including the acclaimed Severance and Ted Lasso, that generate discussion in the cultural zeitgeist. Apple TV+ programming generated a platform record 72 Emmy nominations last year. Almost certainly, the Jan. 17 debut of Severance: Season 2 contributed to the uptick in signups.
“I actually would have assumed they’re spending a lot more than $5 billion just looking at the scale of what they’re doing,” LightShed Partners Group analyst Rich Greenfield told CNBC last week. “In many ways, Apple TV+ has that historic, HBO-like, very high-end quality to much of the programming.”