Streaming and creating are poised for long-term growth, Logitech CEO Bracken Darrell told investors, referencing podcasts and the rise of creators on TikTok and Instagram, which demonstrate the “democratization of digital content.” The trends that grew during the pandemic will “surely grow after the pandemic,” he said Tuesday. Logitech’s Q3 sales growth -- more than the total growth for the past three years combined -- rode work-at-home and spectator gaming trends, said the CEO. Sales soared 85% year on year to $1.67 billion, and operating income jumped 248% to $448 million in the quarter ended Dec. 31. Darrell said that while meeting with about 60 CEOs this week, the “vast majority” indicated they will adopt hybrid work “as the new norm.” A global trend toward spectator gaming continued, Darrell said, noting that over 1 billion people watched a part of the League of Legends final last quarter, and over 100 million watched the final game live, the same number of viewers as the Super Bowl had last year.
Co-CEO Reed Hastings denied Netflix is “underachieving” as it watched Disney+ exceed 86 million subscribers in the first year after its November 2019 launch, compared with roughly 40 million for Netflix in the same period. “It's super impressive what Disney has done,” he said on Tuesday night’s Q4 discussion. Disney’s success shows that consumers are “willing to pay more for more content because they're hungry for great stories,” said Hastings. The Disney+ track record “gets us fired up about increasing our membership, increasing our content budget,” he said. “It’s going to be great for the world that Disney and Netflix are competing show by show, movie by movie, and we're really fired up about catching them in family animation, maybe eventually passing them.” Netflix has “never had any issue with movies being in theaters,” said co-CEO and Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos. “Our biggest issue has been that you had to commit to this very long window of exclusivity to get access to any theaters.” Sarandos would love to give consumers the choice between seeing movies in theaters or at home, “which is becoming the norm” during the pandemic. Hastings predicts that consumers will return to theaters in “significant numbers” beginning in 2021's second half. He’s carefully watching WarnerMedia’s strategy of debuting its 2021 film slate simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max to see if it sets a “path” for future distribution trends, he said. Netflix beat its forecast on net subscriber adds (see 2101190066). “This is one of the more uniquely challenging times, not just for life,” but also for trying to forecast “the growth trajectory of the business,” said Chief Financial Officer Spencer Neumann. “There's just so much uncertainty.” COVID-19 has “accelerated that big shift from linear to streaming entertainment,” he said. The stock was up 17% to $589.60 at 2:15 p.m. EST Wednesday.
Landline phones aren't a thing of the past, partly due to trends occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic, an industry researcher found. The renewed validation of legacy telephony technologies comes as voice calls “address the universal need for communication and social connection,” Parks Associates reported. Home-based lifestyles drove “dramatic upticks in voice calling in all its forms,” according to telecom providers, said Parks. Some trends are temporary, and others may signal lasting change, the researcher said Tuesday. The pandemic underscored the value of traditional landlines, said Parks. Many turn to a landline for important calls, it said, as 40-60% of North American and EU households use one. Cellphones “can struggle for connectivity inside certain home designs and building materials while fixed-lines provide reliable service,” it said: Spotty Wi-Fi coverage can challenge VoIP calls. There are almost 16 million U.S. mobile-only households, whose only broadband access to the internet is through a mobile data plan, said Parks: During the pandemic, landlines relieve overburdened networks and don’t compete for residential bandwidth. Landlines will continue a migration to support VoIP, which in some households could keep landlines as a reliable backup, the firm said.
The post-coronavirus world is likely to be more home-focused, “creating more opportunities for consumers to listen to music and watch movies at home, which will ultimately place a stronger emphasis on the quality of home audio products,” said Futuresource analyst Alexandre Jornod Wednesday. The industry research firm expects the trend to drive long-term growth for high-end audio products, “especially as consumers who have experienced high audio quality are usually more likely to upgrade to perfect their listening experience or access the latest tech features.”
Prime members accounted for about 68% of Amazon shoppers in Q4, said Consumer Intelligence Research Partners Tuesday, estimating U.S. member count at 142 million. Amazon had strong growth in Prime memberships -- at a 2016 rate -- due partly to COVID-19, said analyst Josh Lowitz, projecting 30 million additional members in 2020. The company didn't comment.
Most brick-and-mortar store managers think use of curbside pickup will expand in 2021, but 38% predict “store to door” delivery protocols will increase, Ultimate Kronos Group found. The human resources company canvassed 300 U.S. store managers Dec. 9-25, finding 79% predict in-store COVID-19 health and safety restrictions will begin to ease up this year. And 35% think policies on social distancing, occupancy limits and mask requirements could “begin to lighten” as early as the first half. A quarter think changes in consumer shopping behaviors due to the pandemic will be “relatively permanent.” Only 27% think buy online, pick up in store transactions, including curbside pickup, will exceed in-store sales this year.
Netflix had 8.51 million global net subscriber additions in Q4, beating its Oct. 20 forecast by nearly 42%, said the company Tuesday. It finished 2020 with 36.6 million net subscriber adds, well above the previous high of 28.6 million in 2018, and 31% above the company’s 2019 performance. The result was 2.9% off the pace of the 2019 quarter, vs. projections of a 32% year-on-year decline. Netflix surpassed 200 million subscribers for the first time. “The big growth in streaming entertainment has led legacy competitors like Disney, WarnerMedia and Discovery to compete with us in new ways, which we’ve been expecting for many years,” said the quarterly shareholder letter. “This is, in part, why we have been moving so quickly to grow and further strengthen our original content library across a wide range of genres and nations.” Netflix is forecasting 6 million paid net adds for Q1, which would be 62% below the level achieved in the 2020 quarter, when COVID-19 lockdowns sent subscriber growth through the roof. The stock was trending 9.8% higher in after-hours trading to $551.35.
Low earth orbit satellite company OneWeb is getting additional money from SoftBank and Hughes, bringing OneWeb’s total funding to $1.4 billion, it said Friday. “The capital raised to date positions the Company to be fully funded for its first-generation satellite fleet, totaling 648 satellites, by the end of 2022.” SoftBank gets a seat on OneWeb's board.
Teladoc, claimed to be the oldest U.S. telemedicine platform, with roots dating to 2002, was “thrown a million curve balls” after the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March, CEO Jason Gorevic told a prerecorded CES 2021 workshop. “Overnight, literally our volume doubled,” and the availability of telehealth services became ubiquitous, he said. “We always thought this was inevitable. This wasn’t a surprise to us. We just didn’t think it was going to happen overnight and that it was going to take a global pandemic to be the catalyst for that.” Gorevic estimated Teladoc did more than 10 million “virtual visits” in 2020. Consumers went from the “awareness-building phase” of telemedicine “straight through to the adoption phase, into the expectation phase" in just "a matter of months,” he said. “That almost never happens.” Gorevic predicts that a year from now, consumers will look to virtual-care visits as “the destination for all of their healthcare needs, not just for a slice of their healthcare needs, and we’re already seeing that.” He estimates 60% of Teladoc visits are for “noninfectious diseases.”
TCL has no current plans to make its TVs compatible for ATSC 3.0 (see 2101130068), a virtual CES event heard. The company has no plans to support the 3.0 standard in 2021, a spokesperson said Wednesday. The company will bring the TCL Home app, available in some markets now, to the U.S. this year, said Aaron Dew, TCL North America director-product development. TCL’s Android and Roku TVs will be controllable through the app, allowing them to manage the company’s smart home appliances from TVs, too. The company is also eyeing 5G (see 2101130072).