Apple is willing to sacrifice Apple TV for Apple TV+

“Apple is really taking this services thing to heart. When the company took the wraps off its paid subscription Apple TV+ service, it also unveiled a host of platforms customers will be able to stream the service from,” Adam Levy writes for The Motley Fool. “Most notably, TV+ will be available on Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices.”
“While Apple has 1.4 billion active devices in use, only a small handful of those are Apple TVs. Roku and Fire TV are, by far, the most popular way to watch streaming video on TV screens, and their lead is growing,” Levy writes. “Just 15% of streamers used an Apple TV device, according to a Parks Associates survey from last year. By comparison, Roku and Amazon held 37% and 28% shares, respectively. A similar survey from William Blair analysts last summer found 27% and 29% of consumers stream video on a Roku or Fire TV, respectively, compared to just 16% that use Apple TV. It also found 30% of consumers stream video via the built-in operating system on their smart TV.”
“It’s impossible to tell whether this strategy will result in a more profitable company,” Levy writes. “But considering the massive television audience outside of Apple’s hardware reach and the relatively small size of Apple TV in the company’s business, the risk is certainly worth it.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Of course, without knowing on how much Apple TV+ costs per month and how much Apple is really planning on spending on content, or even how many Apple TV units Apple sells and at what margin there’s no way to gauge the size of Apple’s risk here.
However, you can figure the risk is small in the grand scheme of things, since in the last 90-odd day quarter, Apple brought in operating cash flow of $26.7 billion.