*By Alisha Haridasani*
Apple wants to turn its Pay function into a bigger revenue stream by expanding the use of its cashless payment tool to include a wider range of transactions.
At its annual developers conference this week, Apple announced partnerships with six American universities to incorporate their students' IDs into the Pay and Wallet system.
“When you look at students, if you’ll remember, you use your ID to do so many things ー to get into your dorm room, to go to the library, to pay for your food and your meal plan, to check in to the work out facilities,” Jennifer Bailey, head of Apple Pay, said in an interview with Cheddar’s Hope King. “Now having it in their phones in a secure way, we think students are going to love it.”
Apple Pay also launched a transit payment system in four Chinese cities earlier this year, allowing users to pay for train and bus rides using the Pay tool.
“People love to use it for everyday commuting,” said Bailey. The feature is available in cities in Japan, as well as Moscow, St. Petersburg, London, Chicago, Portland, Ore., and Salt Lake City. There are plans to integrate it with New York’s MTA system.
Apple’s efforts to expand the Pay and Wallet tools are part of its wider strategy to boost its services unit, which includes Pay, Music, and the iCloud. As iPhone sales start to slow, the company's services business become more important.
Revenue from Apple’s services accounted for around 15 percent of revenue in the [second quarter](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/Q2_FY18_Data_Summary.pdf), bringing in $9 billion. While Apple doesn’t break down how each unit fares, the CFO Luca Maestri told [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-01/apple-paid-subscribers-grew-by-100-million-from-year-ago) there are 270 million paid subscribers of its services.
The company is also investing more than [$1 billion](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/25/business/media/apple-hollywood-streaming.html) building out its entertainment unit. Details are sparse, but so far the company has courted the Hollywood stars Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, Damien Chazelle, and Steven Spielberg for a dozen projects that are slated to be released next year.
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/apple-pay-vp-jennifer-bailey-on-future-of-mobile-payments).
Markets opened higher on the first trading day of the new year as investors continue to watch inflation and the rapid spread of the omicron variant in the U.S. Frances Newton Stacy, Optimal Capital Dir. of Strategy/Market Analyst joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss.
Markets opened higher as investors react to positive data on the labor front, with weekly jobless claims falling to 198,000 for the week ending December 25. Ross Mayfield, investment strategy analyst at Baird joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss the market open.
Sky Harbour, a company developing private aviation infrastructure, is gearing up to land on Wall Street. The company announced plans to go public through a SPAC deal with Yellowstone Acquisition Company, valuing the combined venture at $777 million. The company will trade on the New York Stock Exchange as $SKYH.
Dish Network is reportedly in discussions to merge with DirecTV. According to the NY Post, the two sides are currently 'trying to iron out the details.' The competitors have had talks in the past -- over the course of the past 20 years, but those talks been halted by the DOJ over antitrust concerns. Lydia Moynihan, Business Reporter, NY Post joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss.
Jessie Woolley-Wilson, President and CEO of DreamBox Learning, joins ChedHER to discuss how technology is transforming the way the world learns, and her career journey as a leading woman of color in the tech industry.
One startup is working to reverse climate change one seed at a time. Terraformation is a global forest accelerator that provides tools, training, financing, and business support to help scale forest restoration projects worldwide. Forests naturally absorb carbon and Terraformation says that reforestation is a safe, low-cost, and scalable solution to the climate crisis. Yee Lee, VP of growth at Terraformation, joins Cheddar Climate to discuss.
Back in February 2021, Twitter announced its three-year plan to double development velocity, to reach 315 million monetizable users, and double its total annual revenue. Chief Customer Officer Sarah Personette, joined Cheddar to discuss where the social media giant stands now a year after the announcement. "The progress against all three of those pillars has been substantial, and we'll continue to drive that over the course of the next year and beyond," she said. Personette also discussed the leadership of Twitter's CEO Parag Agrawal who took over for founder Jack Dorsey late in 2021.
Daniel Freedman, co-CEO of Burnalong, joins Cheddar News to talk about how Burnalong is helping companies support its staff and prevent workplace burnout.
