The Apple News app and the Apple News Plus subscription have both been around for a few years now and while the app is free and preinstalled on all iPhones, iPads, and Macs, the subscription very much isn't. It costs $12.99 per month for access to magazines and newspapers, and it turns out that it's surprisingly popular.
Apple has long aimed to move its revenue from slowing hardware sales to perpetual services income and Apple News Plus is one success story that many of us might not have expected. At $12.99 per month, it is among Apple's most expensive subscriptions, but new figures suggest that people can't get enough of it.
In fact, people are becoming increasingly enamored with Apple News Plus to the point where as many as 24% of Apple device-owning people are paying for it.
Figures on the rise
That's according to figures shared by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, or CIRP, at least.
According to its report, 24% of people are paying either $12,99 for Apple News Plus or $32.99 for Apple One, a subscription bundle that includes the news subscription.
That figure is considerably higher than the 15% of people who paid for Apple News Plus in 2020, suggesting interest is on the rise. What's more, Apple's 24% figure for 2024 is much higher than the 17% paying for the New York Times, 11% paying for the Wall Street Journal, and 11% paying for the Washington Post.
"One-quarter of the US base of Apple customers represents tens of millions of users, an enormous audience relative to what individual media outlets can expect on their own," the report notes, putting the figures into perspective.
Apple News Plus is often the forgotten Apple service, but perhaps it's also one of its secret weapons as well.
