A new report posted today presented a U.S. Streaming Services chart showing the top 15 TV streaming companies with Apple TV+ struggling in eleventh spot with 7% market share. The top five are shown to be Netflix, YouTube, Prime Video, Hulu and Disney+. This has triggered Apple to aggressively market that their service will extend free subscriptions until February 2021 just to keep them in the race.

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that for Apple TV Plus customers whose free 12-month free subscription is scheduled expire between Nov. 1, 2020, and Jan. 31, 2021, they will continue have free access to the service through February 2021, an Apple rep confirmed. The service normally costs $4.99 monthly and billing will kick in next February (unless you cancel).

Meanwhile, for those who signed up for an Apple TV Plus monthly subscription prior Nov. 1, 2020, Apple will issue a $4.99 monthly credit for three months (applied in November, December and January 2021). News of Apple TV Plus extending the free subscription period was first reported by TechCrunch.

Bloomberg reported that Apple TV Plus had more than 10 million subscribers as of February 2020. Another estimate, from research firm Ampere Analysis, pegged Apple TV Plus’s subscriber count at 33.6 million U.S. users as of the end of 2019 but estimated that the “vast majority” were not paying subscribers. For more, read the full Variety report.

I had noted a week ago that I had dropped Netflix due to poor content which was mainly available in foreign languages only. I also noted that Apple TV+ was thin on new programming due to COVID-19 production setbacks. So it's a smart move on Apple's part to give customers 3 months free to make up for the lack of content.

The good news is that Apple has begun aggressively announcing more programming in-the-works with some of their series beginning to resume production. Apple fans will stick it out with Apple TV+ knowing that the new service is still in a growing phase and millions are likely to sign up for one of the new Apple One service bundles which is a great value, especially for families. The new service will be launching in the not-too-distant future. 

Apple TV+ is smartly creating a great lineup of original content while constantly signing new talent deals to prove that they're this for the long-haul. Click on our Apple TV+ News Archive link below to read about Apple's ongoing content deals and more.

Archive: Apple TV News