Netflix has reported its highest number of new customers in a single quarter in the company’s history, adding more than 1.1 million new subscribers in the fourth-quarter. It took four years to hit 1 million subscribers after Netflix launched in 1999. Investors applauded as the company revealed its results for the quarter, including a 36 percent rise in the Q4 profits for the rental-by-mail service.
Netflix now has more than 12 million subscribers, with a boost in new subscribers in response to new plans that bundle the rental-by-mail service with unlimited video streaming over the Internet, for prices as low as $9 per month. The good news didn’t stop there for investors either; Netflix management expects Q1 2010 to be even more successful, projecting between 1.2 and 1.5 million new subscribers by the end of March.
Fourth-quarter revenue climbed 24 percent to $444.5 million, missing analyst expectations by $1 million. The shortfall however was overshadowed by pledges from management to boost profit margins to 11 percent from its previous 10 percent target.
Netflix got a big boost in the fourth quarter when services available through the PlayStation 3 (PS3), while already being available through Xbox 360 and it is reportedly heading for the Wii console.
Result for: fourth quarter
Vizio has announced that they have surpassed Sony as the second-biggest seller of HDTVs in the United States, as of the 4Q 2008.
According to figures from iSuppli, Vizio accounted for over 14 percent of LCD and Plasma shipments, up 3.11 percent from the Q3. Sony fell 0.42 percent to 13.5 and Samsung remained the leader at 20.2 percent despite a small drop of 0.62 percent from the Q3.
Panasonic rose 3.12 percent for the quarter to settle in fourth place.
“Vizio’s success in the fourth quarter was partly due to increasing brand recognition, courtesy of the company’s strong marketing efforts and retail strategy,” iSuppli analyst Riddhi Patel added.
“This is an indication that in the present tough economic climate, consumers are becoming less brand conscious and prefer televisions that they perceive to have good picture quality and that are less expensive compared to the competition, rather than seeking models with a lot of extra features,” Patel concluded.
Result for: fourth quarter
The past year has been very eventful for Blu-ray. Many new Blu-ray products have been shown at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this year, where just a year ago Blu-ray jumped ahead of its former rival dvd.cfm” target=”_blank”>HD DVD. “It turned out to be a phenomenal year for Blu-ray,” said Tom Adams of Adams Media Research. In the fourth quarter of 2008, which is only too important for tech companies, U.S. consumers bought up 28.6 million Blu-ray titles.
In the same period of 2007, U.S. consumers bought about 9.5 million titles. The biggest selling Blu-ray title, of course, was 2008’s box office heavyweight “The Dark Knight”, which was also the first Blu-ray title to sell over 1 million copies, according to the Blu-ray Disc Association.
BDA President, Andy Parsons, looks back at the beginning of the DVD-era to prove strength in Blu-ray, claiming a faster adoption rate than DVD, and CD. He counts 10.7 million Blu-ray players sold in the United States by the end of 2008, about two and half years since they first became available. By comparison, three years after DVD was launched, there were 5.4 million DVD players in consumers homes.
Critics of these statistics might point out that of the 10.7 million Blu-ray players counted, over 6 million are PlayStation 3 (PS3) consoles, which arguably are sold moreso for gaming than Blu-ray. However, while this point could force player sales to become more evenly matched with early DVD player sales, rising Blu-ray disc sales may indicate growing interest in Blu-ray amongst PS3 owners who previously were not interested or aware of the Blu-ray functionality.
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