Apple Loses More Than IDR 16.4 Trillion Per Year From Apple TV+ Streaming Service

JAKARTA Apple Inc. suffered a loss of more than US$1 billion (Rp16.4 trillion) per year from streaming service Apple TV+. This was reported by The Information which was released on Thursday, March 20. This report cites two sources familiar with the financial condition of this Cupertino company.

Since its launch in 2019, Apple TV + has spent more than $5 billion per year on content. However, last year, Apple cut the content budget of US$500 million (Rp8.2 trillion) in a bid to control expenses.

Apple TV+ is known for its original series such as Ted Lasso, The Morning Show, Shrinking, and Severance, which have won numerous awards. However, this service is still lagging behind in the number of subscribers compared to its competitors such as Amazon's Netflix, Disney+, and Prime Videos.

The report written by Wayne Ma on The Information reveals that although the number of Apple TV+ subscribers continues to grow, this service still has not reached a point of advantage. In 2024, Apple TV+ is recorded to have 45 million subscribers.

It is not yet known for certain whether the number of subscribers increased significantly during the second season of the Severance series, which is currently being discussed. A report from Antenna recently stated that Apple TV+ managed to add two million subscribers in just one month.

Although Apple suffered a loss of $1 billion per year from Apple TV+, this is not considered a major threat to the company. Apple has cut the budget for the film division after several box office failures, focusing more on live streaming.

However, in the TV series sector, Apple seems still willing to bear the loss of continuing to build its streaming service. Losses like this are a natural thing for streaming services that are still in the growth stage before finally achieving profits.

As one of the most profitable companies in the world, Apple has a strong financial capacity to bear this loss. In comparison, in the last quarter alone, Apple reported revenue of 124 billion US dollars (Rp2,042 trillion), with a net profit of 36 billion US dollars (Rp593.1 trillion). The loss was only about 2.7 percent of Apple's profits.

At a subscription fee of 9.99 US dollars per month, Apple TV + offers a variety of popular series and films, including Ted Lasso, Severance, The Morning Show, Silo, and Shrinking. Some programs are also available for free to users under certain conditions.