Steve Carell, Reese Witherspoon Jennifer Aniston speak at the Apple Spring Event on March 25th, 2019.
Source: Apple
Apple will extend some Apple TV+ subscriptions on a free one-year trial for three additional months, the company confirmed to CNBC on Thursday.
When Apple TV+ launched last fall, Apple bundled a free one-year subscription with the purchase of an Apple product, immediately boosting the number of people who could watch the streaming service.
The first of those trial subscriptions were previously going to expire at the start of November, meaning that people on the one-year trial who had not cancelled were going to be charged $4.99 per month for the streaming service.
Now subscribers whose trials expire before February will get three additional months of Apple TV+ for free. This means that someone who bought an iPhone on Dec. 1 and activated Apple TV+ on the same day will have access to the service through March 1, when billing starts.
Apple has not revealed the number of Apple TV+ subscribers. The service has fewer TV shows and movies than rivals such as Disney+, which surpassed 60 million subscribers in August after launching last November. Netflix has more than 190 million subscribers around the world, it said in July. But unlike those services, Apple TV+ doesn’t have a back catalog of reruns.
While early reviews for Apple TV+ were mixed, some titles have been critically praised, with “The Morning Show,” a launch title, receiving several Emmy nominations and winning one.
Apple TV+ is a part of Apple’s services business, which is an increasing focus of investors and accounted for 22% of the company’s sales in the quarter ending in June. Last month, Apple announced several bundles called Apple One, which tie Apple TV+ to other paid subscriptions from Apple such as Apple Music, iCloud storage and gaming service Apple Arcade.