Apple showing $1 billion loss per year on streaming; cuts spending by $500 million despite success of Severance: Report

Apple TV+ is incurring losses of over $1 billion a year to its parent company despite its recent shows like Severance being huge successes.

The new shows on Apple's streaming platform Apple TV+ may be doing great and garnering record viewership numbers, but the tech and media giant is still losing a billion dollars each year due to the platform, a new report has claimed. According to The Information, people in the know have said that Apple has been showing massive losses in the streaming business that have forced the company to cut down on spending too. (

Severance added 2 million subscribers to Apple TV+ but the streamer still lost a billion dollars.

Apple TV+'s massive losses

The report cited two unnamed insiders saying that while Apple had spent $5 billion per year on content since it launched Apple TV+ in 2019, the expenditure was trimmed down by $500 million last year. This was despite the fact that shows like The Morning Show, Ted Lasso, Severance, and Shrinking are global phenomenons, and getting record viewership numbers. Yet, the revenue remains subpar, the report claimed.

The report also said that Apple is losing up to $1 billion each year on its streaming service. In February, research firm Antenna had estimated a rise of 2 million subscribers for Apple TV+ due to Severance, the platform's most successful show ever. While Apple does not reveal the numbers and viewership figures of its shows routinely, Nielsen announced earlier this month that Severance was Apple's most watched show ever, logging in over 3 billion streamed minutes.

How Apple lags behind Netflix, Prime Video

Apple TV+ has lagged behind rivals Netflix, Disney and Amazon.com's Prime Video in terms of subscribers. Apple did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment.

Industry leader Netflix had a total subscriber count of 301.63 million, according to the latest data, while Disney had 124.6 million users followed by Warner Bros Discovery at 116.9 million. The iPhone maker does not break down the subscribers for Apple TV but it is estimated to have reached 40.4 million at the end of 2024, according to five analysts polled by Visible Alpha.

(With Reuters inputs)