Apple to bring paid ads to maps to US, Canada this summer

Apple Maps, an app that comes bundled on hundreds of millions of iPhones and other devices each year, ‌will display paid advertising on top of existing organic search results

Apple on Tuesday said it plans to introduce paid ​ads to its maps service in the U.S. and Canada ⁠this summer, marking its entry into a business long dominated by Alphabet’s Google.

Apple Maps, an app that comes bundled on hundreds of millions of iPhones and other devices each year, ‌will display paid advertising on top of existing organic search results. Advertisers will be able to claim their physical location through a set ‌of business tools, which Apple also said Tuesday it plans to revamp ‌next ⁠month.

Apple did not say how much revenue it expects to ⁠generate from the new service, or how many users of its 2.5 billion active devices regularly use its maps service.

“The introduction of ads in Apple Maps could represent an incremental opportunity for Apple’s ​services business,” said Gil Luria, analyst ‌at D.A. Davidson.

“Apple gets much of its growth and profits from the services business and this could add another layer of growth.”

But the move launches Apple, which has long sought to set itself apart from rivals who ‌generate most of their sales from advertising by playing up its data ​privacy controls, into more direct competition with both Google and Meta Platforms for local advertising dollars.