With The Same Subscription Fee Of Rs. 99, Will Apple TV+ Beats Netflix In India?

Apple Arcade and Apple TV+ have just been announced by Apple with a price of Rs. 99 for each service in India. Users can access both of them with iPhones, iPads, and some other products of the Cupertino-based technology company. However, users can find Apple TV+ on some Samsung and Sony TVs, and Amazon Fire TV.

The pricing in India marks a new move of Apple, a company known for asking a premium price for its services and products.

Many experts in the field said that this pricing strategy is in accordance with Apple’s new focus on revenues rather than hardware sales number. It appears that the iPhone maker is applying that philosophy in the Indian market.

Recently, while Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, announced that the company had had double-digit growth in the country, it only holds around 1.2% of the Indian market in the second quarter of 2019. This new move is made amidst the current situation when Apple found itself unable to increase sales number in India.

Apple TV Plus has put Apple in head-on competition with Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Hotstar, all of which run on the subscription system.

For the time being, Netflix is available at the same monthly fee but users have only one choice, which is to stream via a smartphone. Hotstar comes at a bigger amount of fee, Rs. 299 for a month of subscription. Amazon Prime comes in the middle with Rs. 129 a month for a bundle of many services.

According to a PwC’s report, the video streaming service in India will have a 21.82% combined annual growth rate. By 2023, this market is projected to be worth Rs. 11,977 crore. Apple obviously wants a share of that. PwC also estimates that in the next four years, the industry will have the highest growth rate.

Apple has made its Apple TV+ available to more devices other than its own, making the service more accessible for users in India.

Apple’s pricing scheme is hardly a surprise. Back in 2015, when Apple launched Apple Music in the country, the service was priced at Rs. 120 per month, which was later reduced to Rs. 99. This move was made in answer to the price cut made by Gaana and the entry of Spotify.