The California-based technology giant is reportedly planning to bundle original video content with its Apple Music subscription service by the end of 2017.
It has apparently been talking to “veteran producers” about both original TV shows and movies — though the movie plans are reportedly more “preliminary.” Apple has already shown some appetite for original video content — it bought the “Carpool Karaoke” TV series starring James Corden in July. But this would be a significant broadening of these ambitions.
An Apple spokesperson declined to comment.
Netflix and Amazon Prime are two of the major players in on-demand video, and both have extensive libraries of original content. But The Journal is reporting that — at least for now — Apple doesn’t intend to try to match their libraries.
Instead, the company would hope for its smaller collection of content to aid Apple Music’s battle against its archrival music-streaming service Spotify.
The move would also help to boost Apple’s services business, an increasingly important area for the company as its hardware sales slow down.
Historically, Apple has been all about “hits” — launching huge, revolutionary products that provide a major boost to the company (in theory). But with the exception of the Apple Watch, it hasn’t launched a significant new product since Tim Cook became CEO in 2011, and sales growth of iPhones — on which the company is highly reliant — is slowing.
Subscription services offer Apple an opportunity to generate recurring revenue and better monetise its existing user base.
Even if Apple isn’t immediately seeking to go head-to-head with the likes of Netflix and Amazon, it would still be a development of concern to the two subscription services. Apple enjoys enormous profits and has huge cash reserves — and is under increasing pressure to find new growth. If it develops the will to go all-in on original content, it has the resources to outspend anyone else in the market.
This article was originally published on Business Insider. Copyright 2017.
