The company takes on tech giants, Hollywood and banks
IT WAS NOTHING like Steve Jobs introducing the iPhone. But the two-hour show on March 25th put on by Tim Cook, Jobs’s less histrionic successor as boss of Apple, may nevertheless be remembered as a milestone for the company—and the entertainment industry. Mr Cook did not announce the latest sleek gadget. Instead, he unveiled a suite of products and services, including video streaming, news, games and even a credit card.
Apple’s 900m iPhones worldwide, more than six times as many as Netflix has subscribers, grant it access to a massive potential audience. Analysts speculate that Apple will eventually offer them a variant of Amazon Prime, where customers pay a flat monthly fee for some combination of news, games, cloud storage, music and video, and which could possibly connect with the company’s iPhone subscriptions.
Although Apple continues to earn most of its money from devices, its business in services is growing quickly, accounting for nearly $40bn of revenues of $266bn in 2018 . The new subscription offerings, which are easier to click and buy than their predecessors, should accelerate that trend. Its new partners hope to be along for the ride. Analysts at Goldman Sachs reckon that Apple may convert 10% of the 85m monthly users of its free News app into paying subscribers, for instance.
They are right to be cautious. The future of media will belong to whoever controls relationships with consumers, industry insiders say. Thanks to its ubiquitous devices, Apple has hundreds of millions of customer relationships. With that comes the power to get more of their time and money, and to cut out competitors. Mr Cook may put on a lacklustre show, but his rivals had better watch him regardless.
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