Apple Now Has 860 Million Paid Subscriptions Across Services

[nikaru]

Actually, according to the conference call it is 860M subscriptions - not subscribers (the Macrumors article seems misleading here)

Source: https://www.macrumors.com/2022/07/28/apple-3q-2022-results/

Personally, I have 4 monthly and 1 yearly paid subscription with Apple right now. And I guess this applies to most Apple customers – they either have none at all or multiple. So it makes a difference.

You are a golden chicken for Apple...and actually for all companies that switched to paid subscription model to charge their customers.

I know a few people that spent 400$+ a month only in subscriptions of all sort.

As a customer, I hate the subscription business model. I miss the old days when you actually owned things, but didn't rent them.

 

[Nozuka]

Tried to switch to spotify... but it was impossible to get my whole music collection over to it. A lot of my older stuff is just missing. Many of them are from the "iTunes Match" service, where i was able to upload that stuff myself. Spotify still does not offer that. And some of the things are available in "some markets", but not the one i subscribed to.

Surprisingly, Apple Fitness is one of my favorites. Using it 2-3 times a week.

 

[Marbles1]

Imagine subscribing to Apple Arcade.

Presume the vast majority of these are iCloud storage subs.

 

[wabisabizo]

I just subscribed to their 2 services: iCloud and Apple Music, obviously 😂 Don’t really care for Arcade, News, TV+ Just need what I need 🤷🏻‍♂️

 

[zapmymac]

I’ve had iTunes Match since day 1, and I finally bit the bullet and subscribed to Apple One. The g/f wanted Fitness, so that pushed us over.

Just easier/better value (imo) to get the 2 TB of storage at the end of the day for our household.

Tough to get out of the mindset that I no longer “buy” music 🫠

 

[matrix07]

Tough to get out of the mindset that I no longer “buy” music 🫠

Last week I went out to browse CDs in music shop near home (yeah there are still ones). When I found CDs I like I just took photo and searched on Apple Music & added to my library. Still not getting used to how easy it is to get music nowadays. 😀

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

Just looking at the Apple One Premier subscription and £29.95 a month seems steep regardless of what it offers. It is was around £15 a month j think it would be more popular for sure. It’s a buyers market for these sorts of streaming services and you can use multiple sources and still pay less than Apple charge. I already subscribe to Amazon and Netflix for tv and music so unfortunately Apples offering is less appealing.

 

[Skyscraperfan]

What is the cheapest of their services? Apple Arcade? Is there even a cheaper service than that? And what if you buy Apple One, which includes six services? Do they count that as one subscription or as six?

 

[madeirabhoy]

Just looking at the Apple One Premier subscription and £29.95 a month seems steep regardless of what it offers. It is was around £15 a month j think it would be more popular for sure. It’s a buyers market for these sorts of streaming services and you can use multiple sources and still pay less than Apple charge. I already subscribe to Amazon and Netflix for tv and music so unfortunately Apples offering is less appealing.

yeah i agree and posted separately about it. it just seems like they've thrown the kitchen sink in. they would be better to have headline prices, but you can turn on and off things. ive been mulling over what i need and what i want...

need...tv+, storage, ideally 100gb as 50gb is just tight.
want... fitness, trying it out so far
dont mind...music, arcade, dont mind paying a wee bit for as part of a package.

not interested in family sharing and dont need 2tb. if i could get all the above for about €18 (Portuguese prices are cheaper than uk) id take it. instead ill change tv+ to yearly, keep my 50gb for 99c a month and make the decision on fitness for €60 for a year. if i take fitness then that takes my spending to €10 a month. when i look at it that way, would i pay €8 a month for music, arcade, another 50gb.. separately probably not, rolled into apple one it would be easier.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

yeah i agree and posted separately about it. it just seems like they've thrown the kitchen sink in. they would be better to have headline prices, but you can turn on and off things. ive been mulling over what i need and what i want...

need...tv+, storage, ideally 100gb as 50gb is just tight.
want... fitness, trying it out so far
dont mind...music, arcade, dont mind paying a wee bit for as part of a package.

not interested in family sharing and dont need 2tb. if i could get all the above for about €18 (Portuguese prices are cheaper than uk) id take it. instead ill change tv+ to yearly, keep my 50gb for 99c a month and make the decision on fitness for €60 for a year. if i take fitness then that takes my spending to €10 a month. when i look at it that way, would i pay €8 a month for music, arcade, another 50gb.. separately probably not, rolled into apple one it would be easier.

I’d give it all a go if it was cheaper, but I already pay for two mobile contracts at £30 a month so don’t really want to add more. My Netflix and Amazon Prime is less a month than the Premier and if I was going to try it I’d want the fitness element. I’m getting everything I need at the moment though so it’s not that tempting. Apple were quite late to the market with a lot of this stuff and I’m sure people like me have settled in with alternatives.

 

[211]

I’ve had iTunes Match since day 1, and I finally bit the bullet and subscribed to Apple One. The g/f wanted Fitness, so that pushed us over.

Just easier/better value (imo) to get the 2 TB of storage at the end of the day for our household.

Tough to get out of the mindset that I no longer “buy” music 🫠

I hope you cancelled iTunes Match

 

[Canubis]

You are a golden chicken for Apple...and actually for all companies that switched to paid subscription model to charge their customers.

I know a few people that spent 400$+ a month only in subscriptions of all sort.

As a customer, I hate the subscription business model. I miss the old days when you actually owned things, but didn't rent them.

Ironically I consider myself a huge fan of owning things, esp. for Software I prefer buying a one time license wherever possible. I do the same for music to support bands I like.
But for instance iCloud storage, Music, TV+ or Fitness+ deliver a different kind of thing to me. TV shows I rarely watch twice. So I subscribe for Apple and Netflix so they continuously provide fresh great shows.
And while I still buy music occasionally to own the stuff I really like, the few bucks a month to have unlimited access to explore nearly all of humankind’s musical creations feels priceless to me.

 

[cocky jeremy]

Even at $1 per subscription they're making almost a billion dollars per month. Nuts.

 

[MilaM]

Apple is also very aggressively promoting subscriptions here in EU with promo codes. I used Apple TV+ for ~6 months for free, Apple Music probably for a year and Arcade for 4 months. Would not be surprised if those promo subscriptions are counted in the total.

 

[Canubis]

Even at $1 per subscription they're making almost a billion dollars per month. Nuts.

Actually, their services business made them 19.6 billion in the last 3m. It’s already half as much as their iPhone business, pretty insane actually. Especially when I remember reports not too long ago where Media thought Apple is doomed because of slowing iPhone sales and iPhone being Apple’s one trick pony…

 

[Canubis]

What is the cheapest of their services? Apple Arcade? Is there even a cheaper service than that? And what if you buy Apple One, which includes six services? Do they count that as one subscription or as six?

I guess the cheapest one and entry point for most Apple users is the iCloud upgrade to 50GB for 99 cent - this is how they lure you into their fangs. 😅

 

[MilaM]

Actually, their services business made them 19.6 billion in the last 3m. It’s already half as much as their iPhone business, pretty insane actually. Especially when I remember reports not too long ago where Media thought Apple is doomed because of slowing iPhone sales and iPhone being Apple’s one trick pony…

There is some accounting trickery involved here too though. When an iPhone is sold, a portion of the sales price is accounted for in the services category over time. Those are things like the free iCloud storage, Maps usage, future "free" upgrades and such.

 

[webkit]

Actually, according to the conference call it is 860M subscriptions - not subscribers (the Macrumors article seems misleading here)

Source: https://www.macrumors.com/2022/07/28/apple-3q-2022-results/

Personally, I have 4 monthly and 1 yearly paid subscription with Apple right now. And I guess this applies to most Apple customers – they either have none at all or multiple. So it makes a difference.

So, if an individual subscribed to three different services, are they therefore counted three times? Is an Apple One subscription counted as one or up to six (depending on plan) subscriptions?

The 860 million can be misleading without more specifics.

 

[webkit]

Actually, their services business made them 19.6 billion in the last 3m. It’s already half as much as their iPhone business, pretty insane actually. Especially when I remember reports not too long ago where Media thought Apple is doomed because of slowing iPhone sales and iPhone being Apple’s one trick pony…

The "services" number goes well beyond just subscriptions and also includes things like the App Store, Apple Pay, Apple Care, licensing, etc.

 

[Rogifan]

Actually, according to the conference call it is 860M subscriptions - not subscribers (the Macrumors article seems misleading here)

Source: https://www.macrumors.com/2022/07/28/apple-3q-2022-results/

Personally, I have 4 monthly and 1 yearly paid subscription with Apple right now. And I guess this applies to most Apple customers – they either have none at all or multiple. So it makes a difference.

Is this just subscriptions to Apple services or does this include any subscription Apple manages via IAP?

 

[compwiz1202]

No one intentionally has a paid Apple News subscription.

This is exactly why offers and bundles like Apple One exist - to package several popular services along with an underperforming service to prop up its numbers.

My wife likes it but I wish it were in the middle tier

 

[compwiz1202]

Where is annual subscription for Apple One Premium? Come on Apple

Would be nice for any of the Ones

 

[Macative]

Yeah, that's a lot. And it kinda hurts the argument I make that "accounts" and "services" are one of the biggest obstacles for gifting Apple products. I'd like to get my 70+ year old inlaws a Home Pod to listen to music and use Siri. But are they going to set up all the accounts and services you need to get something like that working? No. Instead I would have to get a crappy Alexa that just works out of the box when you plug it in.

 

[spartan1967]

There is some accounting trickery involved here too though. When an iPhone is sold, a portion of the sales price is accounted for in the services category over time. Those are things like the free iCloud storage, Maps usage, future "free" upgrades and such.

Even if it's free for X amount of time, you have to opt in for the subscription for it to count with what this article is referring to.

 

[Killbynumbers]

And I can proudly say that I am not one of them. I refuse to pay for these subscription services that Apple or anyone else offers. I don't even pay for Apple Music. No streaming videos service either, I don't even have TV service, got rid of that two years ago.

The only subscription that I have is SiriusXM in two cars and I've had that for 20 years.