In the streaming world, Apple has a reputation for quality, thanks to its Apple TV hardware and Apple TV+ streaming service. The latter is best associ

Apple TV+ spent $20B on original content. If only people actually watched.

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2024-11-19 20:30:08

In the streaming world, Apple has a reputation for quality, thanks to its Apple TV hardware and Apple TV+ streaming service. The latter is best associated with original shows and movies surrounded by award buzz and critical acclaim. But despite that success, Apple's streaming service has hardly made a dent in the market at a time when interest in streaming services is bigger than ever.

Apple TV+ launched in 2019. Since then, the company has spent over $20 billion to build an impressive library of original content, Bloomberg reported earlier this year. Yet, despite a highly regarded library of shows and movies with big names in acting and directing, Apple TV+ only garnered 0.3 percent of US screen viewing time in June 2024, per Nielsen.

In July, Bloomberg aptly underscored how minimally competitive Apple TV+ is, writing: "Apple TV+ generates less viewing in one month than Netflix does in one day."

Apple doesn’t provide subscriber numbers for Apple TV+, but it's estimated to have 25 million subscribers. That would make it one of the smallest mainstream streaming services. For comparison, Netflix has about 283 million, and Prime Video has over 200 million. Smaller services like Peacock (about 28 million) and Paramount+ (about 72 million) best Apple TV+'s subscriber count, too.