Inside Apple’s Quiet Ad Business
And What’s Coming Next For Apple TV+
Apple TV+ stands alone as one of the last major streaming services without an ad-supported tier. While rivals have embraced ads to boost subscriber growth, Apple TV+ seems to be standing still on that front or are they? To me (but my audience seems to disagree), the question isn’t if Apple TV+ will introduce ads but it's what changes when they finally do.
Today at a glance:
Why Apple TV+ Is Ad-Free… For Now
Apple’s Quiet Ad Business
What Changes When Ads Arrive?
Why Apple TV+ Is Ad-Free… For Now
From the start, Apple TV+ was positioned as a premium service: fewer titles, no back catalogue, no ads. It launched in 2019 with just a handful of originals and a promise of quality over quantity. Priced low and bundled with Apple hardware, it was never meant to compete with Netflix or Prime Video on volume. Instead, it was another jewel in the Apple’s ecosystem crown. It exists to enhance Apple One bundles, drive hardware stickiness and support the broader Services story.
But that strategy has its limits. As of 2025, Apple TV+ still has a modest share of U.S. TV viewing time (under 1%), is said to be losing 1B$ per year with a subscriber count hovering around 45M globally (according to an anonymously sourced report by The Information). As I wrote in my “Inside the Apple TV+ Distribution Strategy” piece, Apple’s curated, ad-free approach has helped build brand equity but it hasn’t delivered scale.
Introducing ads too early might have undermined that positioning and brand equity. But with Services now powering a growing share of Apple’s profit engine, the pressure is mounting to unlock the next phase of growth. Ads may just be it. Some say it’s not in Apple’s DNA to do advertising. I disagree, here’s why:
