Apple 3.0’s Philip Elmer-DeWitt has Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives’ latest note to clients. Ives estimates that Apple TV+ has already amassed between 30-40 million subscribers. The analyst believes that Apple TV+ can get to 100 million subscribers within 3-4 years.
With an installed base of ~925 million active iPhones worldwide, we believe Apple has an opportunity to gain 100 million consumers on the streaming front in the next 3-4 years.
Based on our estimates so far we believe Apple is tracking in the 30 million to 40 million sub range, although we note the vast majority of those are getting the service for free given the promotion… which we believe is a smart move.
Apple has a compelling list of new shows (The Morning Show, For All Mankind) with only nine programs, although we believe Cook & Co. has committed ~$6 billion annually to original shows/movies to beef up its streaming content ambitions going forward along with potential M&A (MGM, Lionsgate, Sony Pictures, A24) looking ahead to catapult its much needed content library.
MacDailyNews Take: Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were hearing from a little birdie that Apple might possible make a significant, “shocking” acquisition. Perhaps, the beatdown certain movie studios have taken due to the pandemic makes an Apple acquisition even more of a possibility. We already know that Apple and MGM have held acquisition talks. We continue to keep our ears to the ground on the Apple acquisition front and, as always, we’ll let you know if we hear anything new!
As per Disney, as we wrote last month, “Such an acquisition would of course be quite an undertaking as Apple would have to bring the parts of Disney that are unique (think theme parks) into the fold (or keep them as an Apple subsidiary). On the positive side, Apple TV+ would immediately become a massive streaming entity as Disney+ content rolled into Apple’s streaming service would be an instant juggernaut.”