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Netflix, Coming Soon to a Cable Operator Near You? Amid Wall Street's excitement about Netflix's surge in subscribers came news the over-the-top content provider is investigating bundles and more partnerships with operators. In its second quarter, Netflix Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX) added 5.2 million new customers, 2 million more than it forecast a mere three months earlier. The streaming video provider earned revenue of $2.76 billion in the latest quarter pulled from about 52.03 million international and 51.92 million national subscribers, it said. That brings Netflix to a total of about 104 million customers worldwide. Investors responded positively, sending the stock price soaring in after-hours trading immediately after the earnings release. Wall Street rejoiced that Netflix increased its customer base and met its $2.76 quarterly revenue target. Operators' investment in ultra-broadband networks via technologies such as DOCSIS 3.1 and fiber-to-the-home (FTTH), in part driven by surging use of video and consumers' growing preference for OTT versus pay TV content, laid the groundwork for them to forge alliances with streaming video providers like Netflix. (See Top OTT Providers Hold Onto Their Lead.) Looking toward future growth beyond simply trying to add subscribers, Netflix is exploring additional partnerships with cable operators, said Reed Hastings, company co-founder and CEO, during Netflix's earning presentation on July 19.
In June, Altice inked a multi-year partnership with Netflix to offer the video company's content to customers in France, Portugal, Israel and the Dominican Republic, with more nations slated for addition throughout the year. In 2016, Comcast and Netflix worked together to integrate Netflix OTT services into Comcast's X1 pay TV platform. Despite prior similar pacts with smaller cable operators, this marked Netflix's first partnership with a large cable operator -- one it apparently wants to mirror, said Hastings. "We're now looking at proposals for including Netflix in some services and learning the bundling side of the business," he said during the earnings call. "We're doing that somewhat in Europe already and it's been quite successful thus we're interested in expanding that." However, while competitors such as Hulu and Amazon sell networks on top of their platforms, this is not something Netflix plans to do, said Hastings. "We don't see ourselves doing that," he said. "We're really focused on making our network as great as it possibly can be." Related posts:
— Alison Diana, Editor, UBB2020. Follow us on Twitter @UBB2020 or @alisoncdiana. |
In a flurry of activity throughout the week, Donald (DJ) LaVoy, Deputy Under Secretary for Rural Development at the US Department of Agriculture, and his team spent about $145.8 million in the non-urban or suburban areas of seven states.
Calix reported revenue of $120.19 million – up 4% – in Q4 2019, putting a bounce in the step of company president and CEO Carl Russo and a shine to Calix's ongoing transition from hardware vendor to a provider of platforms enabled by cloud, APIs and subscriber experience.
Looking to curtail e-waste and improve the bottom line, BT will require customers to return routers and set-top boxes, although subscribers will not have to pay a fee when they receive regular broadband equipment.
The industry standards organization is looking to ease operator pain from residential WiFi, while it also sees initiatives in connected home and other projects bear fruit.
Deploying DOCSIS 3.1 across its entire footprint gave Rogers Communications the ability to offer speeds of up to 1 Gbit/s,
contributing to a broadband segement that generated about 60% of the Canadian operator's $3.05 billion (US) in Q4 cable earnings.
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