In an article discussing Amazon Prime Video’s user-uploaded videos, The Wall Street Journal reports via sidebar graphic on “Q4 2019 U.S. customer base by service,” (source: Ampere Analysis) that show:
• Netflix: 61.3 million
• Amazon Prime Video: 42.2 million
• Apple TV+: 33.6 million
• Hulu: 31.8 million
• Disney+: 23.2 million
MacDailyNews Take: If these user numbers are accurate, Apple TV+ is doing exceedingly well already! And these are just U.S. numbers. Apple TV+ launched in over 100 countries.
Of course these services all began at different times, some very recently, so this is just a snapshot that we expect is moving very rapidly.
Launch dates:
• Amazon Prime Video: September 2006 (Amazon Unbox)
• Netflix: February 2007 (streaming)
• Hulu: March 2008
• Apple TV+: November 1, 2019
• Disney+: November 13, 2019
At its current price, with a deep library, and already at 23.2 million, Disney+ should move up this list very quickly and give Netflix a real run for their money. Apple TV+ is obviously performing well and Apple’s challenge will be to build out quality Apple Originals content rapidly so that when the time arrives, subscribers will want to renew. With series like The Morning Show, For All Mankind, See and many more already renewed for second seasons, viewers of those series are likely to renew easily, especially at just $4.99/month.
Apple TV+ is available on the Apple TV app on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, iPod touch, Mac, select Samsung smart TVs, Amazon Fire TV and Roku devices, as well as at tv.apple.com.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
How many ipods, ipads, iphones, macs, appletvs, etc. have been sold since they started giving out free appletv+ with them?
I’ll bet those numbers are almost identical. No paying subscribers.
Do you have data to back that up? Also, what’s your point anyway?
MDN is right: Apple has successfully managed to get tens of millions of people to sample and get invested in their original series in a few short months. These tens of millions will become paying subscribers when their free year ends, so they can continue to watch The Morning Show, For All Mankind, See, etc.
For All Mankind took a neat idea and shat all over it. Thanks for killing the guy’s Son for no good reason; that was super fun to watch. The Morning Show was 99% great. The last 5 minutes of the last episode are so far from realistic that the whole thing kind of came apart for me. Not interested in Season 2 and whatever fallout might come. See was cool but plodding. I found the end of the season to be also contrived and not leading into something I care about. And I haven’t even watched the others, teen Dickenson, freaky Servant, blog-star Whatever, and more.
Look, free tv is great. But none of these shows would I pay for with cash. Keep them tethered to new hardware or watch the numbers fall off a cliff.
Same for Arcade and News+, btw. Better tie those into new hardware too or else it’s going to get ugly.
I’d say if they bundled all of those services together for like 7.99, they would have a winner.
They could then raise it to 9.99 when they build up a decent sized library in a few years.
But at the current $19.97 (TV 4.99, Arcade 4.99, News 9.99) a month for a few TV shows, a limited number of games and access to a dying Magazine industry…
It would be cheaper to just buy all that old school…I can get a two year magazine subscription for a dollar a month. I can buy TV shows for 10 bucks a season…and games can run for 9.99 to 50 bucks to OWN it forever.
Apple can charge more for their high quality Hardware because it’s something you buy. However, for service, quantity is equally as important because it’s something that you rent.
it’s an important distinction.
No no no! Mega bundles suck. Allow people to buy what they want without forcing them to subsidize what they do not.
Your gripe is that you think what Apple offers is too expensive. Yes it is for about 80% of people. That is the market share on average that Apple refuses to serve. Apple could fix it, but this is Tim’s Apple. He thinks slapping an Apple sticker on anything makes it automatically worth 20-50% more. It isn’t so, but that’s why brand managers and marketing get overpaid. Apple isn’t following Jobs’s mission to make the world better by empowering everyone. Now Apple is all about maximizing profit from only the upper class that can afford it.
I think it’s similar with Amazon. How many people signed up for Prime primarily to get Prime Videos?
I am one of the free subscribers. And today I just dumped it. It offers zero value to me.
I have it but it’s because I got a year free for buying an Apple 4K.
I haven’t really watched anything yet, mostly because it doesn’t have very much content. Nothing really currently jumps out at me.
I’m going to hold off on forming an opinion one way or the other until the end of the free trail (Nov.).
However, I’ll need a lot more content than what has been announced for me to pay for the service. Based on Netflix model…I’d say 8 to 10 billion dollars of content more…
So realistically, I’m not hopeful for a subscription renewal in Nov.
I’m quite happy with Amazon Prime Video as part of the Prime Bundle. Lately, I’ve been watching seasons of the X-Files, Green Acres and the Rockford files and that’s good enough for me. I enjoy watching older series and don’t necessarily need lots of new content. Amazon Prime Video offers plenty of various content for my viewing pleasure and I watch free Youtube for additional content.
I hate to be the downer sometimes, but we need to be realistic here. It’s also acknowledged that a large number of ATV+ are free subscriptions. In other words, people who are getting it for a year, for free. We really don’t know how many of those Apple can convert to paying subs. I have it, but I don’t watch that much Tv these days. Will I keep it, maybe.
I have so much to DO outside that I don’t have time for TV.
So I bought a 4K ATV recently, and it came with a years subscription…First, the user interface is pretty bad, and the touch remote, is worse. Almost unusable. I’ve resorted to using the app on my phone for control, although even it is far from immune from over scrolling issues(yes, I’ve already adjusted those settings….) Apple seems to have assumed that you’ll be subscribing to EVERYTHING, so chooses to show you movies and TV shows even from “channels” you don’t subscribe to, I guess in an effort to get you to pay money for those.
Frankly, the whole online app ecosystem needs a major makeover. I detest that Netflix shows the same movie in so many different categories. If I’ve passed it by once while searching, chances are really really good I’m going to pass it by the 2nd, 3rd, and Nth time Netflix thinks I should watch it.
But the UI in Apple TV is horrible, and I’m being generous. For the life of me don’t understand why all these apps mix TV shows and Movies. While I might be willing to waste 90 minutes on a movie I may be mildly interested in, I have zero willingness to waste 60 minutes on a never ending series I don’t care for. APPLE: Separate movies from TV shows, and only show me movies I already have access to. Make it better, not worse.
Whatever happened to SJ’s idea for ‘cracking TV’. Isn’t that what ATV was supposed to be?