July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Remember when Japanese carrier NTT Docomo was the darling of the wireless world, could do no wrong, and was the subject of every adoring U.S. report on how mobile in Japan rocked in every possible way?

Japanese hipsters watched TV, gamed, bought stuff, chatted, flirted, and paid for groceries on their advanced mobile devices, while mobile over in the U.S. basically sucked — according to the self-flagellating reports — and we got super-excited about innovative new features like T9 texting.

Yeah, that was a few years ago. As in, pre-iPhone years ago.

Fast-forward to today, and Docomo has just reported its biggest-ever loss in subscribers: 40,800.

Source: NTT Docomo

Who needs iPhone when you have Disney?

The reason? As Reuters notes, competitors Softbank and KDDI carry the iPhone. Softbank grew by 301,900 subscribers, and KDDI grew by 228,800.

To be honest, there’s still no question that Japanese broadband and wireless speeds are much better than what the U.S. has. But it’s the iPhone 5 that Softbank and KDDI are using to capture Japanese customers. And it’s the lack thereof that is causing NTT Docomo its worst subscriber results ever.

Docomo, which features a “diverse” line of smartphones, has the Samsung Galaxy S II, an Aquos Android phone, Sony Xperia, and a variety of other Android-based phones, but no iPhone, and no Windows phone. It does, however, have the much-requested Disney mobile phone — also running Android.

The question, I guess, is whether Disney can put NTT Docomo into the net gainer’s club another time or if Japan’s largest carrier will finally see the light and start carrying a truly diverse set of phones.

Including the one its customers seem to want most.

photo credit: Sprengben [why not get a friend] via photopin cc

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has a habit of announcing good news about his company via Facebook rather than a stuffy jargon-filled press release. I can only assume this is because press releases don’t get many cheerful comments and lack the motivational boost associated with seeing 600 “likes” from people you don’t know.

That’s exactly what Hastings did earlier today with the announcement that Netflix has now reached 30 million streaming subscribers worldwide. He posted the following thank you note via his personal account:

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Thirty million of you are now Netflix streaming members.

I’d like to express my gratitude to each of you. Your choice to be a Netflix member helps us get more content every year and helps us further improve our member experience. You make it possible for us to offer the most amazing internet television experience ever. Thank you, again.”

Hitting 30 million subscribers means Netflix added about a million new streaming customers in a little less than a month. Clearly, the company wants to reassure shareholders that its strategy isn’t lagging behind.

The announcement comes just days after Netflix reported subscriber growth of 29 million for Q3 2012 (adding 1.16 million new subscriptions for the quarter). Analysts interpreted the report as an indication the subscriber growth was lagging, which caused the company’s stock to dip.

Maintaining strong subscriber growth is crucial for Netflix right now because of the large number of smart but risky investments it’s making to grow the company. Netflix is currently using the profits from its domestic streaming business (25 million subscriptions) to fund expansion into additional international markets, which means it won’t turn a profit for several quarters. The company also has a lot of money tied up in the production of original programming, which isn’t due out until Q1 2013.

Hoping to decrease nervousness among its investors, video rental and streaming company Netflix announced its reached a milestone of 1 million subscribers in the U.K. and Ireland today.

Netflix launched in the U.K. at the beginning of 2012 with hopes of challenging Amazon-owned competitor LoveFilm for the spot of top video subscription service. The company said it reached the milestone number of subscribers in just over seven months, faster than any other international market in which it operates.

Investors are definitely paying attention to international subscription rates because of the company’s current business strategy, which includes launching its service into foreign markets using profits from its domestic streaming and DVD rental revenues. Netflix also operates in Canada and Latin America, and it recently announced that it’ll launch in the Scandinavian market.

As we’ve pointed out in the past, Netflix’s best strategy for growth is to concentrate on dominating the global market for streaming video services before others establish an unassailable presence. While Wall Street analysts don’t necessarily disagree with the strategy, it does present some risk. This is because a failure in one (or several) of Netflix’s foreign markets has the potential to negatively impact its successful markets (the U.S. and Canada). Such failures might mean Netflix has less money to spend on expensive licensing agreements or producing original, exclusive programming.

But that hasn’t stopped the company from staying aggressive, which is apparently paying off in the short-term. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings recently revealed that he intends to outbid BSkyB for streaming movie licensing rights in the U.K.. That could cost quite a bit of money, as PaidContent points out.

Video streaming service Netflix hit its estimate of domestic streaming subscribers, with 23.4 million for the first quarter of 2012 — an increase of 1.7 million subscribers compared to the previous quarter, the company said in its latest quarterly earnings report.

Netflix added three million streaming subscribers globally, for a total of 26 million subscriptions.

For Netflix, this is important for a number of reasons, including its credibility regarding future profitability. The company reported a loss of $0.08 per share on revenue of $870 million for the quarter, which is better than analysts’ estimates of $855 million (-$0.27 per share). However, the company anticipates returning to global profitability in the second quarter of 2012.

Netflix had a tough 2011, with a 60 percent price hike on combined streaming-and-DVD rental plans and a failed plan of splitting Netflix into two companies. The company was punished with a loss of more than half of its stock price. The stock appeared to have rebounded slightly in the last quarter with a better-than-expected subscriber growth boost. Now we’ll have to see if that trend continues.

Essentially, Netflix is trying to leverage the success of its domestic streaming business to grow other areas of the company. The company is dropping its focus on growing the DVD-by-mail rental portion of the business, and using the majority of its money to pay for streaming content deals and expand into foreign markets. And if subscriber growth was down, the stock may have dropped to a historic low.

“We are constantly improving our service with better personalization, better user-interfaces, better streaming, and more content,” Netflix stated in the earnings report. “As a result, per-member viewing hours set new records in Q1 and are on track to do so again in Q2, on a year-over-year basis.”

But just because streaming subscriber growth hit its targets for the second consecutive quarter, that doesn’t mean investors will be entirely satisfied. Earlier in the month, Barclays Capital Analyst Anthony DiClemente downgraded Netflix’s stock, cited rising costs and a number of emerging competitors as the main reasons.

We should hear more about the company’s future strategy after the earnings call later this afternoon. For now, check out the numbers from the Q1 report below or read the full report (PDF).

The button is an off-Facebook extension of the Subscribe feature the social network first introduced in September. The social plugin can be installed on any site, just like the “Like” button, to let visitors subscribe to contributors (a.k.a. your writers, journalists, bloggers and reporters) with a single click.

The Subscribe button is already live on author pages on the WashingtonPost.com, The Huffington Post, Forbes.com and Newsweek.

This button is a big deal. When Facebook introduced the Subscribe feature several months ago, it gave individual journalists, reporters and bloggers the power to promote themselves and their stories to larger audiences on Facebook and, in essence, drive traffic back to their articles.

I’ve managed to attract an extremely large and powerful base of subscribers who do, in fact, click on the stories I post to Facebook — in droves, I might add. (Thanks, subscribers!).

So, here’s a little note to my lovely editor and the powers that be at VentureBeat: Please install the Subscribe button as soon as possible. I’ve got 60,000 subscribers and counting on Facebook, and I could really use more. More subscribers for me, means more traffic for you, and I promise not to let the new subscribers go to my head. Okay? Thanks. Love, Jenn.

And if you want more Facebook traffic, too, you’ll want to get the buttons on your site immediately. To ignore the traffic potential that Facebook and its 800 million members can send your way would be like passing up Apple stock when it was less than a $100 a share (guilty as charged).

It’s the Facebook gift that will keep on giving — as long as the social network remains on top, of course.

[Image via bookgrl/Flickr]

A fourth expansion to World of Warcraft, entitled Mists of Pandaria, was unveiled at Blizzcon in October, and marked the start of a push to reverse the declining user base of the hit massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). This patch is the latest move in a public relations drive that has also seen a new series of TV ads, starring kung-fu legend Chuck Norris, debuting on prime-time TV. Mike Morhaime, head of Blizzard, said during the last earnings call that Blizzard would make bigger efforts to keep the subscriber base high, and these latest efforts all seem to be part of that promise.

In addition to pressure from within, World of Warcraft could potentially lose more subscribers after Dec. 20 when Electronic Arts’ massively multiplayer online game, Star Wars: The Old Republic, launches. Never one to mince his words, Activision Blizzard chief executive Bobby Kotick dismissed this thought, casting doubts on whether the publisher EA will even turn a profit on its upcoming game.

“Lucas is going to be the principal beneficiary of the success of Star Wars,” Kotick told Reuters, referring to Star Wars creator George Lucas, who has licensing rights to the game. “We’ve been in business with Lucas for a long time, and the economics will always accrue to the benefit of Lucas, so I don’t really understand how the economics work for Electronic Arts.”

The contents of World of Warcraft patch 4.3, which releases today, and is available to all players, is as follows:

• Raid Finder – Players can quickly and easily form a raid for a specifically tuned version of the Dragon Soul raid; works much like the Dungeon Finder feature
• Dragon Soul – The most epic 10- and 25-person raid encounter Blizzard has ever designed
• Transmogrification – Customize the appearance of your weapons and armor
• Three new 5-person dungeons – Continue the storyline of Thrall and Deathwing as players embark on all-new adventures in End Time, Well of Eternity, and Hour of Twilight
• Void Storage – Players of all levels can now open up 80 slots of long-term storage space
• Fangs of the Father – Legendary rogue quest line
• The all-new Darkmoon Faire – Darkmoon Faire has been completely redesigned and offers all-new games and rewards for players to experience

You can also check out this video, which gives provides a somewhat more dramatic interpretation of the changes:

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Netflix is selling $200 million in convertible bonds to Technology Crossover Ventures after a dismal third quarter earnings report.

The company lost north of 800,000 subscribers in its third quarter, rounding out the number to 35.4 million subscribers of both Netflix’s streaming and DVD-rental services. The major subscriber loss came after the company raised its prices 60 percent and then split the company into two parts: Netflix, the streaming arm of the company, and Qwikster, the new DVD-rental side. After bad reactions from its subscriber base, the company decided to call it quits on the idea and assured its investors the company was done making price model changes.

Now it’s reaching out for cash, as stock prices dip from its summer high of $300 a share, to steadily below $100. The shares TCV is purchasing from Netflix will sell at $85.80, according to the filing, the sale of which hinges on Netflix’s ability to sell $200 million common stock to non-affiliated third party buyers. The company separately put up stock for an undisclosed amount.

A second filing reads, “We intend to use the net proceeds from this offering for general corporate purposes, including working capital and capital expenditures. From time to time we evaluate potential acquisitions of or investment in businesses, technologies, or products that complement our business, although we have no present commitments or agreements to enter into any acquisitions or investments.”

According to a letter to investors, Netflix chief executive officer Reed Hastings and chief financial offer David Wells predict revenue will be lower than anticipated in the fourth quarter, though they have seen cancellations slow. They also see a future for international business and are opening up offices in the UK and Ireland.

[via the Wall Street Journal]

The streaming video service has reached a million paying customers, reports Reuters.

In June, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar said he anticipated that the company would reach the milestone number of a million paid subscribers by the end of the year. Now it seems that the service will far exceed those numbers.

Hulu offers a limited amount of free access to the videos on its website and a premium subscription service called Hulu Plus for $8 per month. Hulu Plus subscribers get access to a larger library of exclusive content as well as the ability to watch programming on several different devices, not just through a web browser.

The company first launched its Hulu Plus subscription service in November with exclusive content from joint owners News Corp, Walt Disney Co. and Comcast Corp’s NBC Universal. Hulu has since added new content from Viacom and movie studio Miramax and has launched a new version of the service in Japan.

Hulu plans to invest $375 million in content this year and reach revenue totals of about $500 million, according to the company’s second quarter progress report.

With its impressive subscriber growth and healthy revenue numbers, critics have questioned why Hulu’s owners are trying to sell the service to companies like Google, Amazon or DirecTV.

The sale, however, might not occur due to lower than anticipated bids for Hulu, which VentureBeat reported last week. Hulu’s owners could terminate the sale if the next round of bids don’t meet its expectations — which are around $2 billion, not including any special content licensing stipulations.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm started with a massive, powerful dragon god, Deathwing, laying waste to most of the game’s world, Azeroth. It ends with an epic showdown against that same dragon that will send players across the world and traveling through time. Players will have to visit a future where Deathwing has won control of Azeroth in order to convince another dragon god to send them further back in time to find the secret to defeating Deathwing. Players then team up with Thrall, the largest iconic hero in the game, to track down the key to defeating Deathwing.

If all that trotting around in the timeline wasn’t epic enough, the expansion culminates in an epic fight that literally takes place on the giant dragon’s back. You parachute off of an airship onto Deathwing’s back and try to pry armor plates off the beast. During the whole fight, Deathwing is trying to shake you off by doing barrel rolls and other maneuvers. Eventually, you wrestle him to the ground and face off with the same corrupted dragon that destroyed most of the world.

Grand finales aside, the announcement today indicates that World of Warcraft’s next expansion pack is on the horizon. Blizzard Entertainment’s yearly Blizzcon convention is set for the third weekend of the next month, beginning October 21. The company unveiled World of Warcraft: Cataclysm at 2009 Blizzcon — shortly after revealing details about the ending of the company’s second expansion pack, Wrath of the Lich King.

World of Warcraft is one of the most dominant online games in the industry. It’s enjoyed that position since it launched in 2004, peaking at 12 million active subscribers. That number has since fallen for two straight quarters to around 11.1 million subscribers, a sign that the game might now be showing its age. The slip in subscribers has given other online games, like Trion Worlds’ Rift, an opportunity to step in and try to steal market share from the massive multiplayer online supergiant.

Cataclysm has also been a huge source of revenue for Activision-Blizzard. World of Warcraft charges players $15 a month to access the game. The company said digital revenues from properties such as World of Warcraft hit a new record, showing a 27 percent increase from the same quarter a year ago during the company’s most recent operating quarter. Digital revenues now account for 37 percent of the company’s total revenues.

Activision-Blizzard sold more than 4.7 million units of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm in the first month after it was released. Cataclysm’s sales topped 3.3 million sold on its first day of sales. By comparison, World of Warcraft’s previous expansion pack, Wrath of the Lich King, sold 2.8 million units on its first day in 2008, and The Burning Crusade sold 2.4 million units on its first day in 2007. World of Warcraft’s third expansion generated an estimated $188 million in retail sales in its first month.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Groupon had 50.6 million e-mail subscribers at the end of 2010 and the company reported 83 million subscribers after the first quarter 2011. That number has since increased by 38 percent, according to an unnamed source in contact with Reuters.

The source also indicated that very little of that the subscriber growth is attributed to the acquisition of other services.

Groupon lets users purchase steeply discounted deals from local merchants. Discounts range anywhere from 30 to 80 percent off the regular sale price on food, trips, drinks at a local bar, etc. Groupon takes half of the money from every deal sold, which is a pretty easy way to bring in a lot of money without having to get creative.

The Chicago-headquartered company is still running at a loss despite the astonishing revenue growth, which went from $94,000 in 2008 to $713 million in 2010. More recently, it lost $146.5 million in the first quarter of 2011.

Those kinds of financial numbers, along with the company’s screwy ACSOI metric used to show income, has caused Groupon to amend its initial public offering, as we reported earlier today. Groupon first filed for a $750 million IPO in June.

Groupon was unavailable for comment about the total number of subscribers.

World of Warcraft is one of the most dominant online games in the industry. It’s enjoyed that position since it launched in 2004, peaking at 12 million active subscribers. That number has since fallen for two straight quarters, a sign that the game might now be showing its age. It’s given other online games, like Trion Worlds’ Rift, an opportunity to step in and try to steal market share from the massive multiplayer online supergiant.

It’s also been a huge source of revenue for Activision-Blizzard. World of Warcraft charges players $15 a month to access the game. The company said digital revenues from properties such as World of Warcraft hit a new record, showing a 27 percent increase from the same quarter a year ago. Digital revenues now account for 37 percent of the company’s total revenues.

“It’s normal to see some declines, the team is currently working on our largest content update since Cataclysm, which will hit later this year,” Blizzard Entertainment chief executive Mike Morhaime said.

The company is working to open the game in new markets and acquire new players, Morhaime said. The game’s latest expansion pack, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, launched in China last month. The company also made World of Warcraft free to play for the first 20 levels of the game in order to attract new subscribers.

“We have seen an increase in new account creations as a result of that,” Morhaime said. “It’s still too early to tell on conversions to subscribership, but I believe that is an important direction for us.”

Blizzard Entertainment is also working on another massive online game that it has not announced yet. The company is diverting more revenue to development of that title, Morhaime said.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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