Following its purchase of magazine app, Texture, recent reports reveal Apple is planning to launch its own premium news subscription service. The news comes as the Californian giant endeavours to increase its ‘services’ revenue to US$50 billion by 2021.
In its recent investors’ earnings call, Apple executives revealed its services revenue jumped 23% to US$30 billion in fiscal year 2017.
As previously reported, in March Apple purchased ‘Texture’ – a company likened to the ‘Netflix’ of magazines. Texture enables customers to subscribe to over 200 magazines for a monthly fee of US$9.99.
According to Bloomberg, Apple intends to integrate the Texture magazine app into Apple News and launch a premium news subscription service.
Sources reportedly claim Apple terminated the employment of ~20 Texture staff following its acquisition.
Texture’s employees and technology are expected to merge into Apple News’ team – staff which are reportedly building the subscription news platform.
Bloomberg claims an upgraded Apple News app with the premium subscription offering, will roll-out sometime next year. Magazine publishers will receive a portion of revenue.
Consensus is, Apple intends to transform its News service into the likes of Apple Music. Like its News counterpart, Apple Music was birthed from another company acquisition – the purchase of Beats Music for US$3 billion in 2014.
While Beats Music was purchased with just a few million subscribers, Apple Music now boasts over 40 million paid subscribers.
