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  • Netflix Q3 result: Continues to grow strong in APAC, much work to do in India

    Netflix Q3 result: Continues to grow strong in APAC, much work to do in India

    KOLKATA: Netflix fell short of global subscriber additions in Q3, albeit a slower growth was forecasted by the streaming giant. The company has added 2.2 million net subscribers in the quarter, even lower than its prediction of 2.5 million.

    In the first two quarters of 2020, Netflix added 15.8 million net in Q1, 10.1 million net subscribers in Q2. However, the streaming service already warned at the end of Q2 that there would be a decline in subscriber addition due to “pull forward” in the first half.

    “As we expected, growth has slowed with 2.2m paid net adds in Q3 vs. 6.8m in Q3 19. We think this is primarily due to our record first-half results and the pull-forward effect we described in our April and July letters. In the first nine months of 2020, we added 28.1m paid memberships, which exceeds the 27.8m that we added for all of 2019. In these challenging times, we’re dedicated to serving our members,” it stated in a letter to shareholders.

    Netflix posted revenue of $6.44 billion and earnings of $1.74 per share in the quarter while Wall Street analysts on average expected third-quarter sales of $6.38 billion and EPS of $2.13. For q4, it forecasts 6.0 million paid net adds which is much lower compared to 8.8 million in the corresponding quarter last year. If it achieves the forecast, it will create a record 34 million paid net adds for 2020, well above the prior annual high of 28.6m in 2018.

    “As the world hopefully recovers in 2021, we would expect that our growth will revert back to levels similar to pre-Covid. In turn, we expect paid net adds are likely to be down year over year in the first half of 2021 as compared to the big spike in paid net adds we experienced in the first half of 2020. We continue to view quarter-to-quarter fluctuations in paid net adds as not that meaningful in the context of the long-run adoption of internet entertainment, which we believe is still early and should provide us with many years of strong future growth as we continue to improve our service,” Netflix said.

    However, despite the pandemic effect on shooting, Netflix continues to expect the number of originals launched on the service to be up year over year in each quarter of 2021. It will continue to invest heavily in local language content.

    APAC, the largest contributor to q3 growth:

    While the quarter has seen a very tepid growth globally, the APAC story is somewhat different. This region was the largest contributor to paid membership growth this quarter with 46 per cent of overall subscriber addition. The revenue also rose 66 per cent year over year.

    “We’re pleased with the progress we’re making in this region and, in particular, that we’ve achieved double-digit penetration of broadband homes in both south Korea and Japan. While this is encouraging, we still have much work to do and we're working hard to replicate this success in India and other countries,” Netflix stated.

    Netflix is working with local partners like Reliance Jio in India, wherein it launched a bundle with the latter’s mobile and fibre broadband plans in Q3. As part of this broad partnership, it will integrate Netflix with two of Jio’s set top boxes. Netflix also mentioned that it partnered with financial institutions in India to make payment processing easier and more seamless, which it expects will have retention benefits. “All of these initiatives are important and work in concert with our big investment in local originals to improve the Netflix experience for our members,” it added.

  • T-Series beats PewDiePie to become world’s top YouTube channel

    T-Series beats PewDiePie to become world’s top YouTube channel

    MUMBAI: After a heavy battle of several months, music label and production house T-Series has finally overtaken PewDiePie to become the top YouTube channel. T-Series now has 90.52 million subscribers, a little above the Swedish YouTuber’s 90.49 million. For the last six years, PewDiePie, aka Felix Kjellberg has been the most subscribed YouTube channel. It was around six months ago that the threat from T-Series started to become imminent, leading to a massive anti-T-Series campaign from his followers. A few days ago, T-Series chairman Bhushan Kumar had tweeted an appeal to Indian viewers to increase its subscriber count.

    India’s telecom revolution enabled T-Series to jump from 30 million subscribers at the start of 2018 to where it has reached now.

  • Reliance Jio subscriber base up 16.5% QoQ to 186.6 million

    MUMBAI: According to Reliance Industries Limited’s annual report, Jio had 186.6 million subscribers at the end of March, up 16.5% from the 160.1 million at the end of last year. The company, however, did not mention how many of these are active subscribers.

     “Jio, now the world’s largest and fastest growing mobile data network, stunned the world and made us proud by turning profitable in the very first year of operations” said RIL, chairman and managing director, Mukesh Ambani.

    In its first year of commercial operations, Jio generated a net profit of Rs 723 crore on a turnover of Rs 23,714 crore.

    “Jio continued with its strong subscriber growth, with 186.6 million customers at the end of March 2018, and the lowest churn in the industry at 0.25 per cent per month. Each Jio subscriber on an average consumes 9.7 GB data, 716 minutes of voice calls, and 13.8 hours of video per month,” the report added.

    The report also made a mention of Jio’s superior speed, claiming that its average download speed of 17.9 Mbps was more than twice the network speed of any of its competitors.

    Also Read:

    Mukesh Ambani keeps salary unchanged for 10th year in a row

  • Netflix and chill but pay more now

    Netflix and chill but pay more now

    MUMBAI: Netflix has made Black Friday a dark day for its subscribers. The content company has increased prices for its standard and premium subscription packages. On 24 November, in an email sent to its subscribers, Netflix communicated that the increase in the membership cost will bring about an addition in content.

    The company’s email read: “The cost of your membership will increase to $10.99/$13.99. So we can add more of what you like to watch. Awesome entertainment built around you is what we’re all about. We have enhanced our features so you can download your favourites and watch without wifi, too.”

    The standard package, which allows subscribers to watch on two screens at once, will be bumped up from $9.99 to $10.99 per month. The premium package, which lets users watch 4K video on four different devices, will go up from $11.99 to $13.99. The basic $7.99 per month plan will remain the same for US subscribers.

    For the UK, the price for the standard plan is going up from £7.49 to £7.99 per month. Moreover, the price of the most premium plan is going up from £8.99 per month to £9.99. The price of the cheapest plan, however, will remain the same at £5.99 per month. 

    According to Netflix director communication Thomas Cherian, the price hike is not applicable for Indian subscribers because the market is nascent and it wants to build its presence. So, Indians can relax and ‘Netflix and chill’ at the same rates.

    But, Twitter was inundated with tweets by various subscribers outside India, taking to the platform to make their displeasure vocal. Announcing the price hike with an email notification has been considered a bold move by a few of the Twitterati and smart because it gets a place to hide amongst other emails.

    public://Netflix2.jpg

    Twitter links:

    https://twitter.com/bangordad/status/934058041460346881

    https://twitter.com/mxjrdn/status/934064057463734278

    https://twitter.com/TopAnnuity/status/932646366123261952

  • Lower deferred tax asset & demonetisation lower Dish TV numbers

    BENGALURU: The largest DTH operator in India in terms of subscriber numbers – Dish TV Limited (Dish TV) reported less than one-sixth profit after tax (PAT) for the year ended 31 March 2017 (FY-17, current year) as compared to the previous year. The company reported PAT of Rs 1,092.8 million for FY-17 as compared to PAT of Rs 6,924.2 million in fiscal 2016. Dish TV has shown deferred tax asset for FY-17 at Rs 740.3 million as compared to Rs 4,360 million in FY-17. The company’s assets and liabilities statement for FY-17 shows deferred tax asset of Rs 5,100.3 million – the sum of the deferred tax asset for both years.

    In its earnings release, Dish TV says that demonetisation outdid a good monsoon as well as thriving economic conditions of the last year. Consumer spending remained a challenge from the latter half to the fourth quarter. The initial growth momentum that could have catapulted the DTH industry to the next level in terms of subscriber additions, took a temporary but prolonged hit. The DTH industry slightly de-grew in terms of new acquisitions during the fiscal despite coming closer to the implementation of digitisation. Dish TV saw subscribers conserving cash for bigger necessities right from the time demonetisation was announced in November up to the end of the fiscal.

    Dish TV managing director Jawahar Goel said, “Fiscal 2017 threw up unprecedented challenges but the Dish TV team took things in its stride. We minimized the impact of demonetisation while focusing on a long-term advantage in the form of recharges through online modes. Despite the odds, Dish TV managed to increase its reach and subscriber base.”

    The company reported 1,029 thousand net subscriber additions during the year to take its subscriber base to 15.5 million.

    Dish TV reported operating revenues of Rs. 30,144 million in FY-17, up 4.2 percent as compared to Rs 28,941 million in the previous year. Subscription revenues of Rs. 27,696 million in the current year were 4.1 per higher than the Rs 26,617 million in the previous year.

    Dish TV EBITDA declined 5.1 percent in the current year to Rs. 9,728 million (margin at 32.3 percent) from Rs 10,249 million (38.5 percent margin) in FY-16.

    Dish TV’s total expenditure in FY-17 increased 9.2 percent to Rs 20,415 million from Rs  18,692 million in the previous year. Cost of goods and services in fiscal 2017 increased 9.5 percent to Rs 14,371 million from Rs `13,122 million in FY-16. Employee Benefit Expense in FY-17 increased 9.5 percent to Rs 1,465 million from Rs 1,229 million. Sales & Distribution Expenses increased 9.6 percent in FY-17 to Rs 3,108 million from Rs 2,836 million in the previous year. Other expenses declined 2.3 percent to Rs 1,470 million from Rs 1,505 million. Finance costs increased 7.3 percent in FY-17 to Rs 2,239 million from Rs 2,087 million.

    Company speak:

    Goel, said, “Revenue growth in the current fiscal is largely going to be a function of subscriber additions and Phase 4 of digitisation should have a material role to play in that. The proposed amalgamation (with Videocon d2h) will further help create scale in the highly-fragmented TV distribution landscape in India while creating significant synergies through the combination.”

    On technological developments, Goel, revealed, “We understand that digital will be an important part of our growth in the future and we are excited about our portfolio of products lined up for launch in the coming quarters. Dish TV’s new HTML 5 based middleware with a card less box and a new chip set is already in advanced stages of testing and would hit the market soon.”

    DTH services will be subject to 18 percent GST rate as soon as the new indirect tax regime is implemented in the country. On the new GST regime, Goel said, “What should be significant in addition to our ability to pass on the uniform tax to subscribers would be the ease of doing day-to-day business and the associated savings in administration, litigation as well as compliance costs that should result from a simpler tax regime. Unlike the current Entertainment Tax and VAT regime, where different rules are used to determine tax in different regions, GST would be a single tax that should be practical and convenient to pass-on to the consumer.”

  • Research and Markets’ World DTH TV Update for 2015

    Research and Markets’ World DTH TV Update for 2015

    MUMBAI: What’s driving DTH subscriber growth globally? According to research firm, Research and Markets’ (R&M’s) latest report, World DTH Market End 2015, almost one third of pay TV satellite growth is a result of telecom companies making DTH offers.

    Telecoms players’ foray into extending their current portfolios along with strategy of selling bundles is the reason behind this..

    The market research outfit says that DTH television is growing in all regions, excepting in the US where it has gone down. Latin America has added the maximum DTH subs growing from 14 million in 2010 to 35 million in 2015 – a compounded annual growth rate of 20 per cent.

    Next to Latin America the other region growing fast is APAC at a CAGR of 17 per cent followed by Middle-East Africa (MEA) at a CAGR of 15 per cent. Europe has grown at a CAGR of 5 per cent for 2010-15.

    The author has tracked tracks TV subscribers quarterly based on technology type – Cable, DTT, IPTV and DTH. The report analyses the DTH pay TV subscribers globally and the share of telecom operators in the DTH space.

  • Research and Markets’ World DTH TV Update for 2015

    Research and Markets’ World DTH TV Update for 2015

    MUMBAI: What’s driving DTH subscriber growth globally? According to research firm, Research and Markets’ (R&M’s) latest report, World DTH Market End 2015, almost one third of pay TV satellite growth is a result of telecom companies making DTH offers.

    Telecoms players’ foray into extending their current portfolios along with strategy of selling bundles is the reason behind this..

    The market research outfit says that DTH television is growing in all regions, excepting in the US where it has gone down. Latin America has added the maximum DTH subs growing from 14 million in 2010 to 35 million in 2015 – a compounded annual growth rate of 20 per cent.

    Next to Latin America the other region growing fast is APAC at a CAGR of 17 per cent followed by Middle-East Africa (MEA) at a CAGR of 15 per cent. Europe has grown at a CAGR of 5 per cent for 2010-15.

    The author has tracked tracks TV subscribers quarterly based on technology type – Cable, DTT, IPTV and DTH. The report analyses the DTH pay TV subscribers globally and the share of telecom operators in the DTH space.