Apple has been growing its services business like crazy over the past few years. The company has created so many services that it now offers subscription bundles to give customers some sense of what it’s like to subscribe to all of them.
If you want to buy services from Apple, you now have more choices: Apple Music for music, Apple TV+ for movies and TV shows, Apple Arcade for video games, Apple News+ for magazines and newspapers, Apple Fitness+ for guided workouts, and… iCloud for storage.
Despite iCloud being the least exciting service Apple offers as part of its Apple One subscription bundle, this unsung hero still seems to be the most popular service with customers. A new report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) found that 64% of Apple customers pay for iCloud.
iCloud dominates the paid services segment
It’s probably not what you expected! You might think that services like Apple Music or Apple TV+ would be the best in terms of service, but the old iCloud is the most popular.
However, Apple Music came in second, with 42% of customers paying for a music streaming service. Apple Podcasts came in third, with 37% customer penetration, even though Apple has yet to launch Apple Podcasts+. Apple TV+ came in fourth, with 32%, and Apple News+ came in fifth, with 27%. CIRP did not have figures for Apple Arcade or Apple News+.
It may seem boring that iCloud is the number one service in Apple’s services business, but it makes perfect sense. iCloud is not an optional service, it is a necessity. With all the photos and videos people take with their iPhones these days, they need iCloud storage to make sure they don’t get lost if they break their iPhone.
Well then, enjoy iCloud.
