Apple's 1 billion subscribers means it's now a subscription company
qz.com
The tech giant isn't just selling iPhones anymore—it's banking on subscriptions to its streaming and cloud storage services.

Apple announced that it now has 1 billion paying subscribers to its services and that revenue from these sales has reached an all-time high.

In its third-quarter financial results, reported after the stock market closed on Aug. 3, Apple reported $21 billion in net sales for its services category out of $81 billion in total net sales, meaning that these subscriptions now account for a quarter of the Cupertino, California-based technology company’s total sales.

  • Magrath@lemmy.ca
    331·
    1 year ago

    Now is this counting individual person subscribers or do they count each individual subscription? Because some people may have multiple subscriptions.

    • cerevant@lemmy.worldEnglish
      105·
      1 year ago

      If you aren’t paying for it, you aren’t the consumer, you are the product. It is ok if you are cool with that, but quite a few people are not.

    • TheBenCommandments@infosec.pub
      61·
      1 year ago

      Why increase compensation for workers when they’ll keep coming in and doing the work to make money for shareholders and owners of corporate real estate?

  • KrisND@lemmy.world
    11·
    1 year ago

    Yeah, that is pretty crazy. It’s found almost everywhere, soon even grocery shopping will be subscription only.

    I remember not that long ago trying, begging, pleading friends and family to hop on with apple. After 10 years, including working as Apple Support for 3 years, I finally got away. I love the quality, the software is so intuitive out of the box and it “just works”.

      • rikonium@discuss.tchncs.de
        4·
        1 year ago

        I’m worried that’s the endgame for say, Walmart+, I’ve seen a sprinkling of subscriber-only checkout lines and parking spots, I’ll keep an eye out to see how that dial turns in the coming years

        • Num10ck@lemmy.worldEnglish
          21·
          1 year ago

          when our kitchens are robots and the food delivery packaging etc needs to be compatible. so like 8 years?

      • KrisND@lemmy.world
        1·
        1 year ago

        My point was that everything is going over to subscription services and eventually it’s going to flood other markets too, such as shopping because it’s a money maker. It’s great Apple is doing well for itself, there was some struggling years, it’s crazy how much they make off subscriptions alone. Not hating on the player, hating the game.

  • TORFdot0@lemmy.worldEnglish
    91·
    1 year ago

    I just signed up for apple one premier this week. I’ve actually done a lot to avoid getting locked in to apple in the past. I never subscribed to iCloud and instead used google photos and self hosted for picture storage. I still have some hang ups with how iCloud Drive works compared to O365 and google drive but apple has the best ecosystem overall. I think the only thing missing is a mesh system Wi-Fi with integrated HomePods like google has with Nest Wi-Fi

  • Nikls94@lemmy.world
    2·
    1 year ago

    Actually, I find this better than offering free products. This way I am not the product.

    I mean, I only pay like 3 € for the cloud save since it’s cheaper than Microsoft‘s plan.

  • Don Corleone@lemmy.world
    612·
    1 year ago

    On related news, Apple announces that they will ship a microscopic piece of His Sacred Turtleneck inside every iPhone 15, thus making them sacred to their cult members.

    As a celebration, members will see an increase in their service prices of up to 15%.