FuboTV launched a branded content studio for advertisers at Interactive Advertising Bureau NewFronts Monday, along with a partnership with LiveRamp to boost its addressable ad capabilities and shows from Terrell Owens, Matthew Hatchette and Gilbert Arenas on Fubo Sports Network. Advertisers can work with fuboTV’s creative team on custom-branded content to air on Fubo Sports Network, it said.
First-quarter Chromebook and tablet shipments remained “on fire,” rising 364.3% and 55.2%, respectively, reported IDC Thursday. “While vaccine rollouts and businesses returning to offices may slow down the work-from-home trend, we are still far from returning to 'normal' working conditions and hence the demand for tablets, especially detachables, is expected to continue for a while," said analyst Anuroopa Nataraj. But as buyers turn increasingly toward “competing products,” such as thin and light notebooks for work or entertainment and Chromebooks for education, “the future of tablets will remain under constant competition, leaving the heavy lifting to larger brands” like Apple, Samsung, Amazon and Microsoft, she said. Apple maintained top Q1 global share in tablets, but its advantage over Samsung shrunk to 4.7 points from 10.7 points in the 2020 quarter, said IDC. HP roared to market leadership in Chromebooks in the quarter, up from the No. 3 position a year earlier, with its 633.9% growth in shipments to 4.4 million, said IDC. Lenovo and Acer rounded out the top three.
Frontier emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy with a 6.3% decline in Q1 revenue from the year-ago quarter to $1.68 billion, the company announced Friday (see 2104230055). Frontier extended its fiber network to 100,000 locations in Q1 as part of its goal to reach 495,000 by year-end. Video subscribers declined 141,000, excluding Dish Network. Frontier expects to give investors more details about fiber expansion in August. The carrier expects to begin trading Tuesday on Nasdaq as FYBR. Incoming Executive Chairman John Stratton said that “we have a ton of opportunity right ahead." Fitch Ratings said the telco may get "the opportunity to increase investments in key strategic areas." New management (see 2104200087) "came across as confident and optimistic," said analyst Nick Del Deo of MoffettNathanson. Management "gets the sense of urgency," said New Street's Jonathan Chaplin.
Charter Communications won't expand plant capacity to accommodate symmetrical broadband anytime soon, CEO Tom Rutledge said Friday. Some customers use more than 1 Tb of data a month, but most of that is via IPTV, and its capacity is sufficient for current upstream uses, he said. He said Charter is capable of upgrading its network, if needed as new products develop. Comcast indicated last week that symmetrical broadband is a priority (see 2104290009). Rutledge said Charter added more than 7 million internet customers in the five years since it bought Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, extended its network past 5 million additional homes and businesses, and spent more than $40 billion on infrastructure and technology. He said over the next six years, Charter will spend $5 billion to reach more than a million unserved customer locations, offset by $2 billion in Rural Digital Opportunity Fund money: That could lead to other "white space" areas of potential customers opening up due to federal investing. He said those rural markets are more expensive capital projects, and payback can take 10-plus years, but the cable ISP is confident it can get good penetration. The public money being targeted toward connectivity efforts like E-rate and the emergency broadband benefit program mean "a huge opportunity, [but] our sense is the states don't know how to spend it all," Rutledge said. Revenue in Q1 was $12.5 billion, up $784 million year over year, Charter said Friday. It has 27.4 million residential internet customers, up 1.9 million; 15.5 million residential video subscribers, down 67,000; 9.1 million residential voice customers, down 247,000; and 2.6 million residential mobile lines, up 1.25 million. Chief Financial Officer Chris Winfrey said the mobile business is scaling up to stand-alone profitability. MoffettNathanson's Craig Moffett wrote investors that Comcast showed its mobile business can be profitable even without unloading traffic from its mobile virtual network operator. The analyst said Charter's citizens broadband radio service spectrum is "a clear path for traffic offload" that could reduce costs. He said wireless could eventually pass video as Charter's No. 2 revenue stream.
U.S. consumer spending on videogaming reached $14.92 billion in Q1, rising 30% from the 2020 quarter, reported NPD Thursday. It had gains across the board, from digital console and PC content to mobile and subscription services, plus hardware and accessories categories. Content spending jumped 25%, and hardware and accessories gained 81% and 42%, respectively. Videogaming engagement and spending continue to thrive from changes in consumer behavior due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but “we are also seeing cyclical gains from the November launches of both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles,” said analyst Mat Piscatella.
Amazon Q1 revenue grew 44% to $108.5 billion from the year-ago quarter, exceeding the high end of the guidance range. Profit was $8.1 billion, vs. $2.5 billion. CEO Jeff Bezos said Amazon Prime Video and Amazon Web Services are “growing up fast and coming into their own.” More than 175 million Prime members streamed videos in the quarter, up 70%. AWS has become a $54 billion annual run rate business, Bezos said. On a Thursday earnings call, Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky said many businesses turned to the AWS cloud during the pandemic rather than investing in their own technology infrastructure, a trend the company expects to continue. Amazon Prime Day is moving to Q2, Olsavsky said. Prime members reached 200 million in Q1. Amazon has benefited from the pandemic “more than any other company in the world,” Wedbush's Michael Pachter wrote investors Friday. Over 60% of Americans are paid Prime members, said the analyst.
Logitech rode COVID-19 pandemic trends, reporting sales of $1.5 billion for the quarter ended March 31, a 117% spike from the year-ago quarter. On a Thursday quarterly call, CEO Bracken Darrell forecast “bigger and broader” opportunities as companies “emerge from the shelter-in-place requirement,” and he believes many work-, school- and entertainment-related behaviors will endure. He cited a recent announcement from Citi CEO Jane Fraser saying employees will be expected to work in the office at least three days, though he didn’t reference Fraser’s designation of “Zoom-Free Fridays.” The “meteoric rise” of video calls won’t reverse, people will continue to need separate places in the home for work and study, and gaming will be used more for social interaction, Darrell predicted. Headwinds could persist due to logistics, said Chief Financial Officer Nate Olmstead.
Pandemic trends are stressing tablet supplies, said Strategy Analytics Thursday. There was a 44% year-on-year shipment spurt to 45.8 million units vs. Q1 2020. The top four global vendors had double-digit increases, led by Apple (16.8 million units), Samsung (8.3 million), Amazon (3.8 million) and Lenovo (3.8 million); No. 5 Huawei had a 33% drop to 2 million. A focus on productivity is part of most tablet vendor strategies, said the researcher. Even as laptop demand stays hot, Windows detachables from Microsoft, Lenovo, HP and Dell “are showing growth once again,” said analyst Chirag Upadhyay, citing use for entertainment, games and communication. Analyst Eric Smith said tablet strength should continue based on work-from-home trends “as people look beyond COVID restrictions.”
Discovery+ drove subscriber growth at Discovery in Q1, with the direct-to-consumer service crossing 13 million subscribers at the end of March, said CEO David Zaslav in a Wednesday report. Discovery has 15 million paying D2C subscribers globally. Q1 revenue grew 4% year on year to $2.8 billion. U.S. ad revenue fell 4% due to lower overall ratings, pay-TV declines and lower inventory, partially offset by higher pricing and the continued monetization of content offerings on discovery+ and TV Everywhere, said the company. Discovery+ recently launched on Comcast Xfinity and Amazon Prime Video.
Delta Air Lines will equip its more than 19,000 flight attendants with the 5G iPhone 12, AT&T said Wednesday: Attendants will use the phones' augmented reality capabilities to inventory in-cabin supplies and “perform critical tasks -- from safety checks to passenger assistance.”