Apple is reportedly losing more than $1 billion annually on its streaming service, Apple TV+, according to The Information on Thursday — providing a rare glimpse into the tech giant’s content operation.
The company, led by CEO Tim Cook, is typically reticent about sharing details on how Apple TV+ is performing on its quarterly earnings calls.
Apple TV+ is lumped together with other parts of its business, like Apple Music and iCloud storage, under the “Services” umbrella on its earnings reports — and that sector has performed well as of late, bringing in $26.1 billion during the holiday quarter, up 14% year-over-year. But based on The Information’s report, Apple’s Services sector is actually performing well in spite of Apple TV+ losing money.
Apple did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
The report provided other illuminating figures, like the subscriber count for Apple TV+. Apple has never shared its subscriber count publicly, but The Information reported Apple TV+ had 45 million customers last year. That would wedge Apple TV+ between Peacock, which has 36 million subscribers, and Hulu, which has 53 million customers, when comparing all the major streaming services.
Apple’s subscriber count may have increased recently, as “Severance” has been performing well for the service, which is also home to shows like “Ted Lasso,” “Mythic Quest” and “Shrinking.” Nielsen recently shared that Apple TV+ subscribers had watched more than 3 billion minutes of “Severance” since the Ben Stiller-directed show returned for its second season — which averages out to about one episode watched per subscriber, based on the 45 million customer count.
It is also worth pointing out that, while losing $1 billion annually is not ideal, Apple has the money to burn on streaming if it wants to; Apple has a net cash position of about $57 billion.
Shares of Apple were up 0.75% in early trading on Thursday, hitting $216.78 per share. It remains the most valuable company in the world, with a $3.26 trillion market cap.
