Netflix's price increases on new and existing U.S. customers (see 1901170053) “will obviously impact the rate of net addition growth” in subscriptions for 2019's first half, said CEO Reed Hastings in an earnings interview. But the company “commensurately” also expects average selling prices to improve, “and that’s what we think will drive an acceleration in revenue growth over the course of 2019,” he said. It’s also instrumental in driving operating margin “higher sequentially” each quarter “to enable us to hit that 13 percent target for the full year,” compared with 5.2 percent in 2018's Q4, he said Thursday. Hastings estimates roughly a billion hours of TV content is being consumed daily in the U.S., and Netflix is “winning about 10 percent of it,” he said. “We’re excited” for the 2019 launch of Disney's direct-to-consumer service (see 1901180026), he said. “Maybe they grow over a couple of years to 50 million hours a day, but that’s out of the billion, and so we compete so broadly with all of these different providers,” including new services entering the market, he said. “That’s why we don’t get so focused on any one competitor.” Shares plunged nearly 5 percent early Friday before closing 4 percent lower at $339.10. Analysts said investors were unhappy with the company's Q4 operating-margin performance, its conservative Q1 U.S. subscriber forecast and that it missed its $4.2 billion Q4 revenue target, albeit barely. MoffettNathanson nevertheless told investors Friday it gives the company's "future U.S. pricing narrative" high grades. Netflix "continues to excel in content procurement and discovery," compared with "the feeble efforts by some traditional media companies" to build "attractive" and competitive streaming offerings, it said.
Disney’s streaming and overseas business operations, newly broken out publicly into a “recast” Direct-to-Consumer and International (DCTI) financial-reporting “segment,” incurred a $738 million operating loss in the year ended Sept. 29, a $454 million increase from a year earlier, said an 8-K SEC filing Friday. Disney previously reported the results of its DCTI operations under three other business segments, it said. Disney blamed the higher DCTI loss on the consolidation of financial results from BAMTech, in which it upped its stake to 75 percent in September 2017 (see 1709200034), plus higher than expected losses from Hulu, of which it would become 60 percent owner at the closing of the Fox acquisition. DTCI revenue jumped 11 percent for the year to $3.4 billion, including $1.4 billion in affiliate fees, $1.3 billion in ad proceeds and the rest from subscription fees, it said. Acquiring majority control of BAMTech enabled Disney “to enter the DTC space quickly and effectively, as demonstrated by the success" of the ESPN Plus launch, said CEO Bob Iger. ESPN Plus topped a million subscribers in its first five months and “continues to grow as it expands its content mix, all of which bodes well” for the debut this year of the Disney Plus DTC service, he said. The “robust slate” of Disney Plus original content will include the first live-action Star Wars series, and other “high-profile projects” currently in production or development, he said. Disney will disclose “greater detail” at its April 11 Investor Day conference, he said, including a first look at the original content Disney’s TV and film studios are creating “exclusively for the new streaming service.”
Netflix changes pricing “from time to time” as it continues “investing in great entertainment and improving the overall Netflix experience,” said the company Thursday in its quarterly shareholder letter. The price increases Netflix imposed this week on U.S. subscribers will help “lift” average selling prices as the hikes are phased in for existing customers over Q1 and Q2, it said.
“Safe technology” will be the “gating factor” in transforming autonomous vehicles into a “trillion-dollar opportunity,” General Motors CEO Mary Barra told a Wolfe Research investment conference Tuesday. Self-driving safety is “vitally important” because “customer acceptance and trust of the vehicle is key,” she said. It's a “focus” on solving “customer pain points that we think opens up the market” for autonomous ridesharing vehicles, she said. “Think about driving in a dense urban environment,” with its expensive parking options and extreme congestion. she said. “Those are all customer pain points that autonomous vehicles, safe autonomous vehicles, can solve.”
LG’s South Korean parent filed to register “webOS Auto” as a U.S. trademark Jan. 7, having established “priority” for the application Nov. 30 in Trinidad and Tobago, Patent and Trademark Office records show. Companies can use trademark law to file for protection in Trinidad and Tobago to keep trade names out of the public eye and use that as the basis for U.S. registration, as long as the application is filed at PTO within six months. LG and information technology services provider Luxoft announced a partnership at IFA to bring webOS smart TV technology to new commercial “verticals,” including automotive. LG and Luxoft demonstrated their first webOS-based car infotainment prototypes at CES last week.
Roku invented a method for enabling subscribers to log in using motion-detection fingerprints embedded in the TV’s remote control, said a U.S. patent application (20190012452) published Thursday at the Patent and Trademark Office. In entertainment systems, “a standard user login process using a remote control usually requires the user to type user identification information on a small remote control keyboard or use the remote control to direct an onscreen keyboard to enter the proper login information,” it said. “In either scenario, logging in to the system, particularly when using a remote control, can be a cumbersome process.” Roku’s solution includes at least one processor “coupled” to a “memory,” and “configured” to detect the motion of a remote control and compare that with one or more stored motions that grant access to the account if a match is found, said the application, based on a Sept. 14 filing. It names Ilya Asnis, senior vice president-Roku OS, as the sole inventor. The company didn’t comment Thursday on commercial implications.
Though CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus predicted at NAB Show New York that broadcasting live sports in 4K or 8K would take the same slow, methodical migration path as HD (see 1810170060), 4K and 8K cameras figure prominently in the network's plans to telecast the Super Bowl Feb. 3 from Atlanta, it said Thursday. In so doing, CBS will continue “its long tradition of introducing innovation and technology to the sports broadcasting industry at the Super Bowl,” including when in February 2004 it became the first to broadcast the Super Bowl pregame, game, halftime show and postgame show in HD. This year, for the “first time ever on any network” in the U.S., CBS will use “multiple” 8K cameras for the telecast, plus 16 cameras with 4K “capabilities,” it said. The 8K cameras will use a “unique, highly constructed engineering solution” to give viewers “dramatic close-up views of the action” from the end zones, it said. The “bonanza” of 4K cameras “will provide additional live game camera angles, and give the production the ability to replay key moments of the game in a super slo-motion and an HD cut-out with zoomed-in perspectives with minimal resolution loss,” said CBS. Its Super Bowl plans also include using a live, wireless handheld camera showing augmented-reality graphics and “up-close camera tracking on the field,” it said. “This will allow the camera to get closer to these virtual graphics in a way that gives viewers different perspectives and angles including never-before-seen field level views of these graphics.”
CableLabs and NCTA collaborated on a series of 10G trademark applications Friday in preparation for the cable ISP industry’s CES rollout Monday of its 10-gigabit broadband initiative for deployments planned for as soon as late 2021 (see 1901070048), Patent and Trademark Office records show. NCTA’s application was to trademark a stylized 10G commercial logo, and CableLabs filed for four plain-text certification marks that would be reserved for industry-compliant 10G products and services: (1) CableLabs 10G Certified; (2) 10G Ready; (3) 10G Certified; (4) CableLabs 10G Ready. NCTA says cable companies and CableLabs are doing 10G lab trials now, with field trials to start in 2020 and market deployment likely to begin 12-18 months after trials are complete.
Apple’s board is asking shareholders to reject a National Center for Public Policy Research proposal to disclose future board nominees’ “ideological perspectives,” along with their skills and experience, said a definitive proxy statement Tuesday at the SEC for Apple's March 1 annual meeting in Cupertino, California. The conservative think tank, which owns at least $2,000 worth of Apple stock, believes boards “that incorporate diverse perspectives can think more critically and oversee corporate managers more effectively,” said the proxy. There’s “ample evidence” that Apple, and the tech industry "generally," operate in "ideological hegemony that eschews conservative people, thoughts, and values,” it said. “This ideological echo chamber can result in groupthink that is the antithesis of diversity. This can be a major risk factor for shareholders.” Apple doesn’t “consider a nominee’s ideological perspectives to be relevant to the Board’s oversight role or the nominee’s ability to serve as an effective director," said the company in the proxy. Apple “considers a wide range of factors in assessing whether each nominee, and all nominees as a group, provides the background, experiences, and attributes necessary to effectively perform the Board’s oversight function,” it said.
LAS VEGAS -- Samsung “wants to see the 8K market evolve and grow,” and its new brainchild, the 8K Association (see 1901080038), is “a special-interest group that’s just narrowly focused on 8K,” Dan Schinasi, Samsung director-product planning, told us Tuesday at CES. “The 8K ecosystem for all intents and purposes is virtually nonexistent, except in Japan, where there’s some distribution.”