Is Apple About To Bundle Streaming?
Last week rumors started circulating around Cupertino that Apple is laying the groundwork to bundle its Music and new TV streaming services into one combined subscription. As a reminder, Apple is prepping to launch its new Apple TV+ service on November 1st with a $4.99/mo subscription offering. Currently Apple Music is available at $9.99/mo. The conventional wisdom is that Apple could offer both services together for something just above the current $9.99, making it an attractive upsell for users.
On the TV side, Amazon is the only other OTT to combine music streaming with video under its Prime subscription umbrella. But I think Apple has its eyes on a bigger prize than just keeping pace with Amazon. Adding Music to its TV+ package could give Apple an important differentiator as it tries to take on the current digital video king Netflix and the about-to-be-huge Disney+, which launches on November 12th.
On the audio side, bundling a video offer with Music allows Apple to match Amazon and turn up the pressure on the subscription-dependent Spotify. Apple Music already has the most audio streaming subs in the US (they surpassed Spotify last year), and adding TV content for a relatively small price increase could create some separation from the the other sub-based audio streamers.
Nothing is set in stone yet, but this one is definitely worth keeping an eye on.