Apple CEO Tim Cook arrives for Apples “The Morning Show” global premiere at Lincoln Center- David Geffen Hall on October 28, 2019 in New York.
Angela Weiss | AFP | Getty Images
The training wheels are about to come off for Apple TV+, the company’s streaming video service.
Apple TV+ costs $4.99 per month. It’s also bundled with other Apple services like Music and iCloud in packages called Apple One starting at $14.95 per month. But a lot of subscribers aren’t paying.
Apple gave away a huge number of Apple TV+ of subscriptions to get the service off the ground. Starting in September 2019, anyone who bought an Apple product — an iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, or Apple Watch — got one year of Apple TV+ for free. During the pandemic, Apple extended the offer twice for people whose trial periods were about to expire.
The majority of Apple TV+ subscribers are still on the promotional offer, with 62% of current subscribers accessing Apple TV+ through a promotional package, according to survey data by Moffatt Nathanson published in January. Apple hasn’t said how many subscribers the service has, but it has sold hundreds of millions of iPhones and other gadgets since late 2019.
Now Apple is starting to wean Apple TV+ subscribers off the free plan.
On July 1, people who buy Apple products will be eligible for only 3 months of free Apple TV+, instead of a year, and people who already cashed on the trial can’t get it again. Also during July, the first subscribers to activate the…
