Apple’s (AAPL) new Apple TV Plus streaming service won’t launch until later this fall, but the company is courting some serious competition from the likes of Netflix NFLX), Amazon (AMZN) Prime Video, and Hulu. Apple’s brand is perhaps the most powerful in the tech industry, but the company has its work cut out for it when it comes to dethroning the current streaming kings.
There are still plenty of unknowns when it comes to Apple TV Plus, but that doesn’t mean we can’t compare what we do know about Apple’s upcoming service to its contemporaries.
Pricing
Apple TV Plus
Apple hasn’t announced pricing for its service yet, but if past precedent holds, the company will be sure to charge a competitive fee for Apple TV Plus. Look no further than the tech giant’s Apple Music, which launched with the same pricing structure for individual and family accounts as chief competitor Spotify. If Apple is going to come out on top with its streaming service, pricing will be key.
Credit: David Foster/Yahoo Finance
Netflix
The cream of the crop of streaming services, Netflix’s streaming service is a surprisingly low-priced offering. The company’s Basic plan, which gets you watching on one screen at a time, costs $8.99 per month. Meanwhile, the Standard plan, which lets you stream to two screens at once and watch HD content, costs $12.99 per month.
Netflix’s Premium plan costs $15.99 per month and lets you stream on four screens at up to 4K resolutions.
Amazon Prime Video
Amazon’s Prime Video comes with a subscription to the e-commerce giant’s Prime delivery service. You can choose to pay monthly for Prime, which works out to $12.99 per month, or pay $112 for the entire year. If you want to opt for Prime Video on its own, you’ll pay just $8.99 per month.
Hulu
Hulu is the least expensive of the major streaming services, with its ad-supported plan priced at just $5.99 per month. The ad-free version of the service costs $11.99 per month and gets you TV show episodes shortly after they hit the airwaves versus other services, which may make episodes available for streaming months later.
Ian Owens, from left, Luka Jones, Aidy Bryant, John Cameron Mitchell and Lolly Adefope attends the premiere of Hulu's "Shrill" at the Walter Reade Theater on Wednesday, March 13, 2019, in New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)
Major shows and movies
Apple TV Plus
Apple still hasn’t revealed all of the shows and movies it’s prepping for the launch of its service, but the company gave us a small glimpse of what it’s cooking up. Oprah Winfrey announced that she is working on two documentaries for the service, while Steven Spielberg said he is working on an “Amazing Stories” series. Kumail Nanjiani will roll out a series called “Little America,” and Jason Momoa and Alfre Woodard announced “See.”
So far, Apple hasn’t provided an indication as to whether it will offer third-party content like its competitors.
Netflix
Netflix has a collection of impressive TV shows and movies to its name including the Oscar-winning “Roma,” “Stranger Things,” “BoJack Horseman,” “Big Mouth,” “Dear White People,” and a slew of others. Add to that a seemingly endless number of third-party shows and movies, and you could probably turn to dust before you finished watching it all in one session.
Amazon Prime Video
Prime Video also has a number of quality shows including “Goliath,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “The Man in the High Castle,” “Bosch,” “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan” and more. The network also has third-party movies and shows for viewing, as well as others that you’ll have to pony up some extra cash to watch.
25th Screen Actors Guild Awards – Photo Room – Los Angeles, California, U.S., January 27, 2019 - Marin Hinkle poses backstage with her Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series award for "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel". REUTERS/Monica Almeida
Hulu
Hulu’s originals include “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “Shrill,” “The Path,” “Marvel’s Runaways,” “Pen15,” and others. Its originals haven’t been as strong as Netflix’s or Amazon’s, but it makes up for it by offering new episodes of TV shows before other services. So if you’re trying to keep up with “The Bachelor,” Hulu is the place to be.
Audience size
Apple TV Plus
Apple’s service doesn’t launch until later this year, but since it will be a part of the company’s Apple TV app, it will be available on more than 1 billion iOS devices, as well as Apple TVs and Macs. If just 10% of those devices sign up for individual accounts, you’re looking at 100 million subscribers. Of course, it will take a while for Apple to build up to that number. For some context, Apple launched its Apple Music service in 2015, and just crossed the 50 million subscriber mark in its latest fiscal quarter.
Netflix
The biggest of the bunch, Netflix boasts an international subscriber base of 139 million users. That’s a heck of a lot of people binging shows and ignoring real-world responsibilities. And I for one would like to salute those brave souls.
Amazon Prime Video
Amazon is notoriously tightlipped about its Prime subscriber numbers, and even more so about its Prime Video users. The latest numbers available about Prime indicate there are more than 100 million subscribers to the service. Chances are the number for Prime Video subscribers is a fraction of that.
Hulu
Hulu’s subscriber base is far smaller than Netflix’s with just 25 million people signed up for the service. With the announcement that the company was lowering its base ad-supported offering to $5.99 per month, though, those numbers could increase.
