Boy was that some kind of rollout. Star-studded. Oprah was there, Stephen Spielberg was there, Aqua Man was there. How could it not take off like a rocket? Well, ask Apple. Because despite the hype from the company. And despite tech types talking up the big threat to Netflix from Apple and all its might, Apple TV+ has been a dud. And even a disease that kept everybody home watching TV did not help.
A new survey from Flixed showed that Apple TV+ is the least popular streaming service amongst the top streaming services. Most popular as is always the case was Netflix. The survey which found that half of streamers use at least three or more paid video platforms showed Netflix as the most preferred service of 67 percent of users.
Apple TV+ though has failed to make a sizable impact with only 12% of the platform users ranking it as most preferred. What may have been a surprising second-place preference though was cable. It looks like, at least in the minds of the audience fo the Flixed study, that while cable is on the decline, people appreciated how the TV everywhere apps work and deliver content.
On the other hand lots of people felt that there was not much to watch on cable. Are the numbers incongruent? Do people who use cable just have it for the company?
Another disturbing trend for Apple is that it had the highest number of people sharing per account. While it has become a cliche to talk about adult children using their parents Netflix, it turns out that 5.3 people share one Apple TV+ account compared to 3.3 sharing Netflix accounts. So not only does Apple have far less subscribers to work with, A higher percentage of them are encouraging people to watch without buying in. depending on how many of these customers have the service due to purchasing an Apple product the numbers could look pretty grim next year.
With 6 billion spent on original programming and no lack of stars Apple better find a way to make people love them. or it is going to be a tough sell when Tim Cook can take the stage again.
