Apple Hikes Music, TV Prices for First Time

For the first time, Apple is raising the prices of its Apple Music and Apple TV+ subscription services in response to rising licensing costs and a growing library of movies and programming.

The price increases — effective Monday (Oct. 24) — will see Apple Music members pay about $1 more per month for individuals and roughly $2 for families, 9to5Mac reported.

The cost of Apple TV+ will go up $2 per month, while its subscription bundle offering Apple One will go up about $3 per month, according to the report.

An Apple spokesperson told the website that the company is raising its music prices due to an increase in the cost of licensing songs. It will in turn allow musicians and songwriters to earn more when people stream their music.

“We introduced Apple TV+ at a very low price because we started with just a few shows and movies,” the spokesperson said, adding that the company had added an “extensive selection” of series, movies and documentaries in the last three years.

Last month, Apple raised the prices of apps and in-app purchases — other than auto-renewable subscriptions — in Chile, Egypt, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Poland, South Korea, Sweden, Vietnam and all territories using the euro.

As PYMNTS noted at the time, these price increases came as consumers are increasingly cutting back on subscription services while they deal with rising inflation. Our research found that the share of consumers not subscribed to any service in July rose by 19% from May. Streaming services accounted for much of this, losing 10% of their subscriber base on average.

The “great unsubscribe” may not end anytime soon, with the economic outlook not likely to improve until 2023 or 2024, which means subscription providers will need to get creative.

Speaking to PYMNTS last month, Rima Khoury, vice president of engineering at subscription billing and management platform Vindicia, said the impulse to cancel often begins with preventable glitches that subscription providers need to stay on top of to avoid losing subscribers more or less by accident.

See also: Merchants Try New Tactics to Slow Subscription Churn

Consumer expectations have been transformed by the digital shift to the point where any friction and inflexibility in subscriptions can tip someone to cancel.

“There are a lot of factors that play into the frustration, and part of it is how do you manage all of these from the consumer’s perspective?” she said. “How do you know how much you’re spending and what subscriptions you need or want versus the ones that you just forgot about?”