By showing more and more ads to its users, Apple will try to compensate for the decline in smartphone sales, which in recent years has become the manufacturer's main source of income. However, this may cause dissatisfaction among consumers and antitrust regulators.
In June, Apple expanded the ways to pay for ads on the App Store homepage. In August, the company posted a job posting stating that its advertising platform will be largely automated.
Innovation in the smartphone market has almost stopped and demand has fallen accordingly. So it makes sense for Apple to look for new revenue streams. It seems likely that this step was inspired by the experience of Amazon, which started showing ads in search results. Because with this step, the company has grown the business tenfold since 2016 and reached $31 billion in 2021.
According to Insider Intelligence's calculations, Apple makes about $4 billion a year from ads. However, this move may cause justified indignation from fans of the company, who have been overpaying for premium products and services for decades.
Apple's latest advertising initiative has caught the attention of antitrust regulators, who suspect that iOS' new privacy policy is an attempt to harm rivals: The company's mobile device users now decide for themselves whether they allow platforms to track their preferences. Meta estimates that it will lose $10 billion this year alone because of this decision alone.
Last year, Google earned $210 billion and Meta earned $115 billion in ad revenue. If these are true and Apple launches its own web search service, things may change.
