2019 has been a year of change for Apple when it comes to the types of products it sells. It’s the year Apple embraced the subscription services model in an attempt to make up for lagging iPhone revenue. During the course of the year, Apple has launched three new subscription services: Apple News Plus, Apple Arcade, and Apple TV Plus. That’s in addition to its existing Apple Music and iCloud subscription services.
But Apple is, of course, facing heavy competition from existing services providers, such as Netflix, and new ones, such as Disney Plus. To differentiate its offerings from its competitors, Apple is said to be working on a bundled subscription service that could launch as early as next year, reports Bloomberg.
The new bundled subscription service would likely tie together existing subscription services and offer them as a single monthly package, instead of adding any new services to the mix. Bloomberg says the subscription services that could be bundled together include Apple News Plus, Apple TV Plus, and Apple Music, citing “people familiar with the matter.”
A bundled subscription service from Apple wouldn’t be completely new for the company. It already offers a bundled subscription service, of sorts, to students who subscribe to its Apple Music service for the student price of $4.99 a month. When Apple launched Apple TV Plus earlier this month, those Apple Music student subscribers got the new Apple TV Plus service added to their accounts for free.
It’s unlikely Apple would be quite so generous with its nonstudent offerings. Right now regular consumers pay $9.99 a month for Apple Music, $4.99 a month for Apple TV Plus, and $9.99 a month for Apple News Plus, which means if someone subscribes to all three, they pay $24.97 a month. Though Bloomberg doesn’t mention any price points, it’s possible Apple could offer a bundled service with the three services above in the range of $14.99 to $19.99 a month in an effort to attract subscribers to its most important services offerings.
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