While other businesses are jeopardizing due to Coronavirus breakout, Apple is causing this opportunity. The Cupertino based firm has launched a cheapest iPhone last week, and now, it’s expanding its Apple Services to more countries.
Apple announced the availability of of App Store, Apple Music, Podcasts, Apple’s Arcade and iCloud to more countries. This move will broaden the Apple’s revenue from services.
Today’s announcement of Apple’s expansion to newer markets is rejoicing for both community and the company. While it garners more money and subscribers to the firm, customers’ can now access millions of songs, podcasts, apps, games and cloud services in several languages.
More specifically, Apple’s Music, which is having 60 million songs, curated playlists and Beats 1 radio station, will be adding 52 new countries today. This makes the total count to 167 nations now. Making this more interesting is the offering of Apple Music for free till 6 months to all the newly added countries. Paid songs in the store range from $3 to $11.
The music industry, which is currently dominated by Spotify with 35%, has over 120 million paid subscribers. It is followed by Apple with 19% and Amazon Music with 15% shares. Now, Apple’s foray into new markets will expand the subscriber count, and garner more revenue to the firm.
For long, the company has been relying on its iPhones and other computing products for revenue, but this has been changing to bring more revenue from services.
Last week, Web-based interface for the Apple Music streaming was launched. The web-interface is available at music.apple.com and is accessible through latest browsers.
Editor’s Pick: Apple iPad Pro 2020 (12.9-inch): Power-Packed with outstanding A12Z Bionic chip
Other services like App Store, Podcasts, Apple’s Arcade and iCloud will be open to another 20 countries now. These are three from Oceania, two in Asia-Pacific, eight in Africa, two in Middle East and five in Europe. These services, along with Apple Music, will be available in 40 languages.
Apple Arcade is a video game subscription service by Apple Inc. It is avaibable for iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, and macOS devices. Apple Arcade was announced in March 2019, while it was launched on September 19, 2019
In January 2016, Fortune had reported that within six months after launching, Apple Music had rapidly reached 10 million paying subscribers milestone, while the same feat was achieved by competing music streaming service Spotify six years.
While Apple’s expansion of such is anticipated, making the move now is appreciated. As more people are confined to homes amid world-wide pandemic, having additional options like these will be more entertaining. By July 2018, Apple Music had surpassed Spotify in terms of paying users in the United States.
Apple’s vice president for music and international content, Oliver Schusser said, “We’re delighted to bring many of Apple’s most beloved services to users in more countries than ever before.” He further added “We hope our customers can discover their new favorite apps, games, music and podcasts as we continue to celebrate the world’s best creators, artists and developers.”
The App Store, Apple Arcade, Apple Music, Apple Podcasts and iCloud are now available in the following countries and regions:
- Africa: Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Libya, Morocco, Rwanda, and Zambia.
- Asia-Pacific: Maldives and Myanmar.
- Europe: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Serbia.
- Middle East: Afghanistan (excluding Apple Music) and Iraq.
- Oceania: Nauru (excluding Apple Music), Tonga, and Vanuatu.
Apple Music is also expanding to the following countries and regions:
- Africa: Algeria, Angola, Benin, Chad, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Namibia, Republic of the Congo, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Tunisia.
- Asia-Pacific: Bhutan.
- Europe: Croatia, Iceland and North Macedonia.
- Latin America and the Caribbean: the Bahamas, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Turks and Caicos and Uruguay.
- Middle East: Kuwait, Qatar and Yemen.
- Oceania: Solomon Islands.
App Store is now available in 175 countries and regions, whereas Apple Music is now available in 167 countries.
Source: Apple
Also Read: Facebook launches an experimental app ‘Kit’ for Apple Watch
