Apple is said to be considering a new pay-monthly Podcast subscription service to compete with the likes of Amazon and Spotify, according to a report from The Information that cites people familiar with the matter.
The paid service is said to be part of an effort to entice podcast creators to Apple’s Podcasts service and to pull them away from rival services that give ways to monetize their content, that would break away from the free model Apple has maintained with Apple Podcasts for quite some time.
Apple in recent years has looked to grow its subscription service offering, with the launch of Apple Music, Apple News+, Apple Arcade, Apple TV+, and Apple Fitness+, to name a few. Apple reported in October that its Services category, which also covers iCloud, saw revenue grow from $12.5 billion in Q4 2019 to $14.55 billion in Q4 2020.
The company is continuing to see exponential growth across its Services, so an “Apple Podcasts+” service doesn’t seem too hard to imagine.
Backing up today’s report, Bloomberg has also suggested Apple is working to bring subscriptions to the Podcasts app as part of a new push from the company to bring original programs to the service.