Apple is moving to expand its advertising business in earnest to overcome slower hardware growth caused by lengthening iPhone replacement cycles.

Business Insider reported on Tuesday that Apple will introduce ads in its Maps app this summer and roll out Apple Business, a business-focused platform combining advertising features. It is stepping up efforts to expand service advertising and pursue a business integration strategy.

About 95 percent of Apple’s advertising revenue currently comes from App Store app-install ads. Through these measures, Apple aims to significantly expand its share into the small and midsize business advertising market. In particular, map advertising is a fiercely competitive area among companies seeking to drive visits to offline venues such as restaurants and shops, and the industry expects it to have far greater revenue potential than App Store ads, judging by the precedent of Google Maps.

Those expectations are also reflected in growth indicators. Research firm Omdia estimated Apple’s advertising revenue last year rose 15 percent from a year earlier to about $7 billion.

Apple has stressed privacy protection as a basic human right and introduced its App Tracking Transparency policy in 2021, which shook up the existing advertising market. Paradoxically, Apple’s own advertising revenue began to surge from that point. For that reason, the industry sometimes describes Apple as the world’s largest advertising company that does not call itself an advertising company. Apple, however, now faces the delicate task of maximising advertising revenue while preserving its premium brand identity.

The services business, including advertising, has grown to about $109 billion and has become a key growth engine for Apple. But criticism is also growing that the company is expanding too aggressively to generate profit. A prime example is the noticeably higher frequency of ads shown in the App Store. Sponsored search results that were once a single placement have expanded into multiple ad placements, which is interpreted as reflecting Apple’s 고민 to make up for weak hardware sales with service revenue.

Still, Apple faces a range of internal and external obstacles on the path to expanding its advertising market. Global antitrust regulators are taking aim at the App Store’s commission structure and the company’s grip on a closed ecosystem. Another major business variable is that the U.S. Department of Justice is pressuring Apple’s search partnership deal with Google, valued at about $20 billion a year.

With regulatory risks growing, industry attention is focused on whether Apple can manage concerns about damage to its brand image and successfully establish map advertising as a new revenue source.