Analyst: Apple video streaming service could have 100 million subscribers in 3-4 years

In a note to clients — as noted by AppleInsider — Webush analyst Daniel Ives predicts that Apple’s upcoming video streaming service has a good chance to reach 100 million subscribers somewhere between 2022 and 2024. That would bring in $7 billion to $10 billion in annual revenue.

For comparison, Netflix currently has about 140 million paying subscribers, and Hulu has about 25 million.

It’s a big harder to estimate the audience for Amazon’s video programming, which includes its library of licensed shows and originals, totaled about 26 million customers in early 2017, according to a Reuters review of internal company documents.

Amazon Prime is a broad subscription that offers many perks to its members, while Hulu and Netflix offer only video streaming. All told, Amazon has an estimated 90 million Prime subscribers.

But back to Apple. It’s streaming service will almost certainly be announced at the March 25 “It’s Showtime” event, but Ives thinks the service won’t roll out until the fall. And his predictions are based on “minimal speed bumps,” continued brand loyalty to Apple, and aggressive content acquisition.

Apple has 30 scripted series in the works. They include:

Amazing Stores, a reboot of the fantasy, horror, science fiction anthology series that ran from 1985 to 1987;

Are You Sleeping, a drama series that will star Octavia Spencer and which is based on Kathleen Barber’s novel of the same name;

Home, which will look inside the world’s most extraordinary homes,

See, a world-building drama set in the future, 

An untitled Damien Chazelle drama, 

An untitled Reese Witherspoon/Jennifer Anniston/Steve Carrell dramedy, Dickinson (a half-hour comedy starring Hailee Stenifeld), 

A Ronald D. Moore science-fiction drama dubbed For All Mankind, 

An untitled M. Night Shyamalan thriller series, 

A TV series adaption of Foundation, the Isaac Asimov science fiction novel trilogy, 

The half-hour dramedy Little Voices from producers J.J. Abrams and Sara Bareilles, 

Little America from the screenwriters (Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani) of The Big Sick,

A drama series about pre-teen investigative reporter Hilde Lysiak, 

An English-language adaptation of the French short-form series Canal+, 

A half-hour scripted comedy from Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day, Defending Jacob, starring Chris Evans, 

A series produced by Anonymous Content and based on the New York Times article, “Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change,”

An AAU basketball drama series dubbed Swagger from NBA superstar Kevin Durant,

My Glory Was I Had Such Friends, a one-hour limited drama that stars and is executive produced by Jennifer Garner and executive produced by J.J. Abrams,

Original series, specials, and shorts based on the “Peanuts” gang of characters created by Charles M. Schulz.

An untitled drama series starring Brie Larson that’s based on the life experiences of undercover CIA operative Amaryllis Fox and her upcoming memoir Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA.

A series based on adaptation of Terry Gilliam’s 1981 film, Time Bandits.