| ▲ | 827a 16 hours ago | |
Their services revenue this quarter was their second largest business segment (iPhone #1), but experienced more growth than any other segment (~15% iirc, iPhone was more like 6%). Many onlookers see "Services" and think "Oh wow Apple TV and Apple Music must be doing really well", and that's exactly what Apple wants you to think. In reality, these services are doing good, but my understanding is: that category is utterly dominated by tolls. Their toll-taker position in controlling App Store sales, the fees they charge on Apple Pay transactions, and their revenue from their part in the Apple Card system. Their genuine services, other than maybe iCloud storage, are small businesses. Consider this: Apple reports $28.7B in quarterly services revenue. Spotify reported $3.8B in quarterly revenue directly from their 281M premium subscribers ($4.3B total) (AM has no free tier). Spotify is, in all likelihood, quite far ahead of AM in subscriber counts; estimates put AM at ~100M. AM also gives away a ton of subscriptions likely at a bulk discount (its included with some Chase credit cards, Verizon Wireless plans, etc); it would surprise me if total AM revenue is higher than $1.5B/q. | ||
| ▲ | JustExAWS 15 hours ago | parent [-] | |
$20B+ of that service revenue per year is free money from Google. | ||