Apple and Amazon: How to Decipher Streaming Success Without Subscriber Numbers

Apple and Amazon’s quarterly financial results are becoming something of a guessing game for Wall Street analysts trying to size up who’s winning the streaming subscription war. Neither tech giant will exactly budge on telling the public exactly how many paying customers they have.

It’s become almost a parody of the old Mad Magazine comic strip “Spy vs. Spy,” pitting two adversaries against the other with enough equal firepower to blow each into smithereens. Amazon dangles it has 153 million prime subscribers, but won’t break down on average how many tap into video. Apple doesn’t even break out its streaming platform’s financial results, though its music streaming service clocks in at about 100 million subscribers annually.