Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) announced several new service offerings on Monday designed to expand its business as sales of its venerable iPhone slow around the world.
Apple unveiled its long promised streaming service, called "Apple TV Plus," that aims to house original shows and movies and compete with established players in the space such as Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN). The company also laid out the details of a new subscription news service, credit card and video game subscription.
The news service, "Apple News Plus" will cost $9.99 U.S. a month (Cdn$12.99) and includes 300 magazines and a handful of major newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times and The Toronto Star. Missing from the announcement were other major newspaper publishers, who have reportedly been wary of Apple's terms.
The company also said it is launching "Apple Card," which will be both a physical credit card and part of iPhone's "Wallet" app. Apple Card won't have any late fees or annual fees, and it will offer a percentage of cash back. And the newly announced “Apple Arcade” game subscription service will offer new, original video games. The games will be played across Apple devices, both on and offline.
But the biggest splash on Monday was the unveiling of Apple’s new streaming service. The Apple TV app will bring together different streaming services and traditional cable subscriptions into one bundle. The streaming service is expected to have original TV shows and movies that reportedly cost it more than $1 billion to develop.
The iPhone has long been Apple's marquee product and main money maker, but sales are starting to decline globally. The company is now pushing digital subscriptions as it searches for new revenue growth.
Apple has remained largely focused on making gadgets: iPhones, iPads, computers and its Apple TV streaming box. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs began toying with the idea of building a powerful TV business, but he couldn't pull it off before his death in 2011. It has taken his successor, Tim Cook, eight years to draw up the script that the company will now try to execute.
Apple has plenty of money to spend on original content with about $245 billion U.S. in cash and marketable securities. It must now prove itself attractive to Hollywood even without a track record for supporting high-quality programming and then ensuring it gets widely seen.
The new streaming service will be free of ads and will be available across Apple devices, some smart TVs and the Apple TV, as well as Roku and Amazon Fire TV streaming devices. Officials said Apple TV Plus will be available in 100 countries beginning this fall but offered no hard launch date and no subscription price.
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