“79% of U.S. buyers would only buy a car if it supported CarPlay”

If this is true, then Apple is about to make a crap-ton of money. Some points from the CNBC article where I found this stat:

• Apple engineering manager Emily Schubert said 98% of new cars in the U.S. come with CarPlay installed. She delivered a shocking stat: 79% of U.S. buyers would only buy a car if it supported CarPlay.

• The auto industry faces an unappealing choice: Offer CarPlay and give up potential revenue and the chance to ride a major industry shift, or spend heavily to develop their own infotainment software and cater to an potentially shrinking audience of car buyers who will purchase a new vehicle without CarPlay.

• GM, which wasn’t listed on Apple’s slide, already gets revenue of $2 billion per year from in-car subscriptions and expects it to grow to $25 billion per year by 2030.

• Tesla, which doesn’t support CarPlay, recently shifted into selling its “FSD” driver-assistance features, including auto-parking and lane-keeping, as a subscription that costs as much $199 per month.

• The next generation of CarPlay will need significant buy-in from automakers to give Apple’s software access to core systems. Apple suggested it secured cooperation from several major carmakers.

• In June, Apple revealed that it has explored features that integrate commerce into the car’s cockpit. One new feature announced this summer would allow CarPlay users to navigate to a gas pump and pay for the fuel from the dashboard of the car, according to Reuters.

This sounds like an incredible source of revenue. Of course there will be a lot of push back from car manufacturers who obviously want to keep this revenue to themselves. But Apple has the advantage of offering with integrations such as:

• iPhone obviously.
• Watch, which I believe will be a lot more popular in the future as more advanced healthcare capabilities are added to it.
• Apple home IOT networks.
• Apple's own entertainment content from Apple TV. I would not be surprised if Apple starts a movie studio 5 years from now or form some exclusive partnerships with maybe Disney.

While this is all exciting, that 79% sounds very inflated. For those of you looking to buy new cars, is having CarPlay really that big of a criteria when you consider your next vehicle?

Disclosure I own a lot of Apple.