Apple has reportedly become the latest technology company to plan a foray into producing original television and movie content.
Sources told the Wall Street Journal that Apple is preparing to produce original content for its $10 per month music streaming service, to help it better compete against Spotify.
Apple Music has been testing the water with some documentary content about musicians but now plans to make the jump into premium programming.
According to the report, Apple hopes its content could prove to be as internationally popular and critically loved as programming such as Netflix's Stranger Things.
But the company does not appear to be planning to spend the vast sums that would be required to become a direct competitor to Netflix and comparable services or premium cable networks such as HBO. Instead, Apple has firmly set its sights on Spotify, which currently has around twice the paying subscribers as Apple Music, at around 40 million to around 20 million.
Apple has been exploring directly entering the entertainment business for years, but nothing has yet eventuated, the report states.
But with the smartphone market rapidly maturing and competition intensifying in key markets such as China, the company needs to find replacement revenue streams to compensate.