An estimated 9% of U.S. households subscribe to Apple TV+, a recent report by analysts at Parks Associates claims.
The report places Apple’s streaming video subscription service fifth on the list of most popular streaming platforms — behind only Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, and Disney+.
“Apple TV+, which launched around the same time as Disney+, has not seen as much explosive growth [in recent months],” the report notes. “However, with a promotional offer tied to recent Apple device purchases and a small stable of original programming, the service has reach nearly 10% adoption.”
There are a few interesting factoids in the report. For instance, the majority of Apple TV+ and Disney+ subscribers also subscribe to Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and Netflix. The report also suggests that around 69% of Apple TV+ subscribers cancelled one other subscription video service over the past 12 months. It does not reveal the reason for cancellation, thereby making it tough to ascertain whether this was due to them getting the content they wanted from Apple TV+.
Photo: Parks Associates
Do the Apple TV+ subscriber numbers make sense?
It should be noted that the report is only based on a survey, however. In this case, the survey was of 10,026 American households which was then used to extrapolate sider trends about households across America.
But if my math is correct, this number is seemingly in line with a recent Bloomberg report, stating that Apple TV+ has around 10 million monthly subscribers. Parks Associates refers to broadband houses in its report. It defines these as the 87% of U.S. broadband with broadband in their home. If there are approximately 128 million total households in the U.S., 87% of that number would work out at roughly 111 million broadband households. The 9% who are subscribing to Apple TV+ would put the number at about 10 million monthly subs.
The big question, of course, is how many of these people are paying to watch Apple TV+. As the Parks Associates report notes, Apple has given away one year of free Apple TV+ to anyone who bought a new iPhone, iPad, MacBook or Apple TV in the last year. Bloomberg recently said that at least half the people subscribing to Apple TV+ are doing so only because they get it for free.
If Apple does not extend the free offer for another year, it will therefore likely experience a big drop-off in users. To try and get around this, Apple is supposedly looking into acquiring rerun content to bolster its Apple TV+ library.
What are your thoughts on Apple TV+? Let us know in the comments below.
