24/7 Insights

• Apple TV+ is far too small to compete in a world of much larger streaming services.
• Given how long it has been in business, at its current size, Apple TV+ is a failure.

Apple TV+, the huge tech company’s streaming service, launched about the same time as Disney+. Disney+ has 154 million subscribers, while Apple TV+ has 25 million, estimated because Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) does not release numbers. Apple TV+ is far too small to compete in a world of much larger services owned by Netflix, Amazon, and media companies.

Research data shows that the average U.S. household has three or four streaming services. The churn rate in the industry is high. People shift from one service to another by canceling and taking a new subscription. It is a bruising world in which even the largest companies have lost billions of dollars since their services launched.

Services are also combining as they try to gain subscribers. Recently, Disney’s streaming services, Disney+ and Hulu, and WBD’s streaming service, Max (HBO Max merged with Discovery+), have been merged.

Each streaming service has to compete with the largest two by far. Highly profitable Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) has 279 million subscribers. Amazon Prime Video has over 200 million. Prime Video has unique advantages, as it is part of Prime, an e-commerce loyalty program that is essential to the company’s success. Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) has an estimated 170 million Prime members in the United States.

What is Apple TV+’s distinctive feature? It makes its original shows, but so do its competitors. It has a library of shows produced elsewhere, and so do its competitors. Apple TV+ has been in business long enough that, at its current size, it is a failure.

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