Apple to Roll Services into Subscription Bundles

Consumers will be able to save up to $5 by bundling tv, video games, music, and news services together.

Need to Know

  • Customers will be able to subscribe to multiple services and bundle them at a lower monthly price than subscribing to services individually.
  • Apple services said to be part of the subscription bundle program include Apple Music, Apple Arcade, Apple TV+, Apple News+, and iCloud.
  • The company’s aim is to keep customers within the Apple ecosystem through the incentive of a lower price.

Analysis

Apple is reportedly rolling out a subscription bundles, wrapping a number of its products into one monthly package at a lower fee than it would cost to subscribe to each individually.

According to a report in Bloomberg, the company is referring to the bundling option internally as “Apple One.” The bundled subscriptions will allow consumers to access a number of Apple products—including Apple Arcade, Apple TV+, Apple News+, Apple Music, and iCloud—at a lower combined price than it would cost to subscribe to each service individually. The bundles will be available in tiers: an entry-level bundle, for instance, will include just Apple Music and Apple TV+, with upgrades that wrap in other products such as Apple Arcade and Apple News+. Depending on the tier, consumers should be able to save between $2 and $5 a month.

The Bloomberg report says the company could launch the bundling option as soon as October, which is also when Apple is set to roll out its newest iPhone.

The idea — incentivizing customers to stay within the Apple ecosystem with a bulk discount — is a smart move for the company: in addition to retaining consumers who might already subscribe to each service individually, it encourages users to stay within Apple’s suite of products for all of their entertainment needs. This will create. amore reliable recurring revenue stream for the company, and positions it as a competitor to Amazon’s Prime service, which offers media streaming as well as product delivery.

Apple is no stranger to the idea (and benefits) of keeping users within its suite of products: its Apple Card, which is designed for use via Apple Pay, has built-in financing options specifically for purchasing Apple products: the card offers interest-free monthly installment payments for iPhone purchases, plus 5% cashback options on purchases made in the Apple store. This ease of use—plus added incentives—has benefitted Apple’s bottom line: earlier this year, Apple’s services category, which comprises Apple Pay, Apple Music, iTunes, the App Store, iCloud and more, showed a year-over-year bump of almost 17%, raking in $12.7-billion for Q1 2020.