services

Stephen Hackett knows a thing or two about Apple history. For the last couple years, making great wall calendars has become a new skill set for the Relay FM cofounder.

Apple’s fiscal Q2 results are in and along with a March revenue record for iPhone, the company also had another all-time high in Services revenue. A big part of the latter is Apple customer subscriptions and CEO Tim Cook announced during the company’s earnings call that’s almost hit the 1 billion mark.

For Apple, revenue from Services like the App Store and iCloud are as important for the business as selling iPhones and Macs. Today, Apple is providing a status update on services milestones for Apple Pay, TV+, Fitness+, and more.

Apple is rumored to introduce a service bundle that includes Apple Music, Apple TV+, and more in a single subscription. 9to5Mac has now found evidence that Apple is indeed working on this bundle, based on iOS 13.5.5 beta code.

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Apple officially expanded the reach of its services offerings today, bringing key content businesses to more countries.

The expansion sees the App Store, Apple Arcade, Apple Podcasts, and iCloud launch in 20 new countries. Meanwhile, Apple Music debuts in a total of 72 new markets. Users signing up to the Apple Music free trial in 52 of the new countries will be able to use the service for free for six months, compared to the usual three-month trial offers.

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Jason Snell has published his annual Six Colors report card covering Apple’s 2019 performance, and this year it includes responses from me and my 9to5Mac colleague Benjamin Mayo. Go read it now and come back!

Final grades are based on ratings from 65 participants that Jason describes as “writers, editors, developers, podcasters, and other people who spend an awful lot of time thinking about Apple.” Apple’s Wearables category ranks highest (4.6/5) while Software Quality and Apple TV tie for worst (2.7/5).

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A judiciary committee in July asked questions surrounding antitrust and competition concerns of big tech. The documentation from those hearings has now been released.

Apple addressed its policies on the App Store, competition in markets where Apple offers first-party apps, disallowing alternative browser engines, among other topics. On the subject of Apple’s role in the repair industry, the company said that the ‘cost of providing repair services has exceeded the revenue generated by repairs’, implying it does not tightly control repairs for financial gain.

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CIRP has released a new report today with its estimates for how well each iPhone model sold during Apple’s Q3 (calendar Q2). In addition to the iPhone XR being far and away the most popular iPhone in the US ahead of the upcoming iPhone 11 launch, the firm has data on how well Apple’s Services are doing with iPhone owners.

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As expected, Apple’s Services segment was a hot topic during its Q2 2019 earnings call this afternoon. Apple just unveiled four new services last month, and analysts were keen to know how Tim Cook expects each of them to affect their business.

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A couple of weeks before Apple announces its long-awaited streaming video service, a firm of analysts has suggested that 100M subscriptions could be ‘a realistic medium-term goal’ for the company. This compares to the roughly 150M Netflix subscribers.

Wedbush cautions that the number is predicated on Apple bringing on board major content partners, as well as purchasing content owners, as it would take too long to rely solely on creating original content …

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As Apple rebounds from its first earnings call predicated with a guidance revision in 16 years, many analysts remain skeptical of the company’s ability to regain its trillion-dollar status. Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty, however, offers a different take, via CNBC. 

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Apple’s Services growth is likely to slow during the current quarter, say two separate analyst surveys.

Services revenue is going to be increasingly important to Apple at a time of flat iPhone sales. But while the market does expect Services to continue to grow, the rate of growth is expected to be dramatically slower in the March quarter …

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A statement made by Google could suggest a slowing in the growth of the payments the company makes to Apple to be the default search engine on iOS devices …

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Apple’s chief financial officer Luca Maestri has said that the company expects its growing revenue from services like iCloud and Apple Music to boost Apple’s overall profit margin, but the exact impact will depend on the product mix within the category …

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The consensus prediction for Apple’s Q2 earnings call later today is that the company will reveal iPhone sales some way below earlier analyst expectations. While analysts expect Apple to hit guidance, which would see revenue almost $8B up year-on-year, talk of the iPhone X driving an iPhone 6-like ‘supercycle’ has disappeared.

Assuming that turns out to be the case, it will put increased focus on the company’s revenue from Services …

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Yesterday, a Morgan Stanley analyst expressed just how big of an impact the upcoming iPhone 8 could have on Apple’s stock price and unit sales. Now, RBC analyst Amit Daryanani has expressed his own bullish attitude towards AAPL, but his expectations are based almost entirely on Apple’s Services sector.

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It’s never a great experience when iCloud goes down and Apple services are affected, but it always helps to know it’s not just you having issues. Apple typically acknowledges ongoing outages on its System Status site with a brief description of the problem, and this week Apple has updated its design to emphasize last known issues.

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