Filloux: Don't pooh-pooh Apple's ARPU

According to Frederic Filloux’ Monday Note, average revenue per user (ARPU) is the most important metric of all.

From The ARPUs of the Big Four Dwarf Everybody Else.

Click to enlarge.

To put it another way, with its service business (music, apps, etc.) Apple is making 10x more than a decent publisher makes on advertising. And given the growth (+17 percent Y/Y), Horace Dediu does not exclude a service-related ARPU of $50 per device owner and per year in the near future.

My take: Amazon may be the king of ARPU, as Filloux dubs it, but Apple’s $194 per user is nothing to sneeze at.

While we’re comparing apple and oranges, here’s how Filloux says the New York Times stacks up against Google and Facebook:

In other words, for each dollar of digital ad growth between 2011–2018, the NYTimes took 32 cents, Google took $1.00 and Facebook took $3.70.