It was only a matter of time before Apple joined the slew of other companies and raised the price of its services this year. Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, Apple News+, and the Apple One bundle subscriptions have seen sizeable increases in the US and a few other countries around the world.
Luckily, South Africa seems to have dodged this particular increase. Either that or the fruit company just hasn’t got around to updating the local Apple TV+ website to reflect the changes yet.
We’ve reached out to Apple to confirm SA’s safety but didn’t receive a response at the time of publication.
Apple TV+ tells SA to ‘keep the change’
We certainly hope the unchanged local price isn’t an oversight, for the sake of our and every other South African’s wallet – especially considering that Apple’s Music and VOD streaming services increased their local price a year ago almost to the day.
Locally, Apple TV+ remains R125/m following a 1-week free trial if you’re a new user. Elsewhere, it has seen a nearly 43% increase from $7/m to $10/m or $100 per year up from $70 for the annual subscription.
The Apple One bundle that includes Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and Apple News+ (in supported countries) has increased from $17/m, $23/m, and $33/m to $20/m, $$26/m, and $38/m for the Individual, Family, and Premier plans respectively.
These increases are effective immediately for new subscribers or on your next billing date, 30 days after Apple made the announcement.
2023 has already seen numerous price increases across multiple industries. Disney+, Netflix, and Spotify hiked their prices this year but (thankfully) South Africa was spared from the latter two. Even DStv increased its prices this year.
On mobile, MTN, Vodacom, and Telkom all hiked prices early this year. Cell C didn’t but only because it beat the others and increased its prices in December 2022 – technically not ‘this year’.
The price of local gaming consoles has been all over the place. First, consoles from Xbox and PlayStation saw a R1,000 price cut, then a (larger) increase, and then Sony announced a rather large PS Plus price hike.
Let’s not get started on South Africa’s most recent fuel price hikes… although things are looking better for November.