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Disney+ reports its first subscriber loss of 2.4M subscribers, plans to lay off 7K employees

Disney’s first quarter with CEO Bob Iger back in command isn’t looking so good. Disney announced its Q1 2023 earnings today, reporting a total of 161.8 million Disney+ global subscribers, a decrease of 2.4 million subs from 164.2 million in the previous quarter. This is the streamer’s first subscriber loss since launching in 2019.
The drop in Disney+ subscribers was mainly driven by a decrease in Disney+ Hotstar subscribers. The international streaming service, available in India and parts of Southeast Asia, saw a decline of 3.8 million subscribers, down from 61.3 million subs in the previous quarter.
On the semi-positive side, Disney+ gained 200,000 domestic subscribers in the U.S. and Canada.
The results put Disney+’s 2024 target into question. Disney+ plans to reach 215 million-245 million subs by 2024, which could see streaming king Netflix, with over 230 million global subscribers, lose its crown. However, it’s looking like Netflix can relax — at least for now.
Notably, Iger announced during today’s earnings call that Disney will no longer provide subscriber addition guidance, the same move that Netflix recently made.
The subscriber loss comes on the heels of the company increasing the subscription price of its Disney+ ad-free plan to $11 per month in tandem with its new $7.99 ad-supported tier. For that reason, analysts were actually expecting a larger loss of 3 million subs, so today’s news is not entirely bad from that perspective.
Disney’s other streaming services, Hulu and ESPN+, had a decent quarter, gaining 800,000 subscribers and 600,000 subscribers, respectively. Hulu now has 48 million subscribers, and ESPN+ has 24.9 million.
Disney also reported an increase in revenue for the quarter, citing $23.51 billion, just barely beating expectations of $23.33 billion. Last quarter, Disney reported $20.15 billion in revenue. In addition, its operating loss among the direct-to-consumer segment narrowed, losing $1.1 billion versus $1.5 billion in Q4 2022. Disney plans to save $5.5 billion in costs.
As part of Disney’s effort to make its streaming business profitable, Iger revealed during today’s earnings call that the company is planning a significant restructuring, including job cuts. The layoffs will affect 7,000 employees. The company froze new hiring in November.
“I have enormous respect and appreciate for the dedication of our employees worldwide,” Iger said during the call. “While this is necessary to address the challenges we face today, I do not make this decision lightly.”
There have been rumblings in the media that Disney may be exploring the sale of licensing rights for its films and TV series to its competitors in a desperate attempt to combat streaming losses. If the rumor turns out to be true, this would be a significant change in strategy since Disney is known to keep much of its original programming exclusively on Disney+ and Hulu.
Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) was the most recent major media company to license its shows in order to gain revenue. WBD struck deals with Roku and Tubi to license 2,000 hours of movies and TV shows, including “Westworld,” which was pulled from HBO Max in December.

Disney+ reaches 164.2M subscribers as it prepares for ad-supported tier launch

Disney+ reports its first subscriber loss of 2.4M subscribers, plans to lay off 7K employees by Lauren Forristal originally published on TechCrunch
Disney+ reports its first subscriber loss of 2.4M subscribers, plans to lay off 7K employees

Nothing Phone (1) review

Can a smartphone still be cool? They were, once upon a time, in those days when they were more luxury than ubiquity. But what happens when everyone has one — and, more to the point, we all pretty much have the same one? Phones aren’t fashion. They’re not clothes or shoes or even cars. Chances are probably roughly equal that you’ve got the same one as the world’s richest billionaire or the person who bags your groceries.
I won’t go so far as to say choice among smartphones is an illusion, but it’s also probably not as great as you think. The last several years have seen a consolidation of the market among a fleetingly small handful of companies, while once mighty brands like LG and HTC have fallen off. Add in geographical and carrier limitations, and it becomes clear how small a pool we’re ultimately swimming in here.
Nothing is a company founded on, among other things, the notion that smartphones can still be cool. That they can be exciting and interesting in an area where they’re more or less all similar touchscreen electronic slabs.
There’s never been a good or easy time to launch a new smartphone company. But in a number of ways, founder Carl Pei may have chosen the worst — or at very least, the most difficult. Along with the aforementioned consolidation comes an overall stagnation and decline in smartphone sales. After a decade of flying high, things came sputtering down to Earth. It’s a regression that pre-dates but was ultimately accelerated by the pandemic.
Image Credits: Brian Heater
Smartphone manufacturers painted themselves into a corner in a bid to beat the competition. In the process, devices improved to a point that people felt less compelled to upgrade as often. Differentiation grew more difficult and continued attempts to add features to outdo others drove flagship prices into the quadruple digits. It’s a paradox of sorts — smartphones may have gotten too popular for their own good.
Those factors presaged a massive supply chain crunch. Chips and other components have been increasingly difficult to procure at scale for companies not named Apple or Samsung, while external financial factors, including inflation, have driven up the price of consumer electronics. Anyone with a passing interest in the category will probably agree that the category could use some new life, but how one might go about supplying it is a different question altogether.
“Nothing has been a difficult company to launch,” Pei recently told me. “This industry, in general, has one of the highest barriers of entry. We have huge companies, and it’s consolidating. There are a handful of companies that are active, and huge companies tend to be pretty bureaucratic, slow moving and very analytical. No wonder why all the products are kind of similar these days. In a regular industry or product category, you also have fresh blood that keeps coming in from below. In our industry, there’s no fresh blood because the barrier to entry is so high.”
Other barriers exist, as well. That, after all, is precisely the reason Nothing isn’t bringing its first phone to the States. While American consumers have begun to recognize the appeal of purchasing unlocked devices, carriers still have a stranglehold on the market. “You have to work with a big carrier,” Pei added, “they have a lot of negotiation power over you.”
Nothing Ear (1) headphones were a fine way to test broader consumer interest. The earbud market, while still saturated, still has room for growth. And, besides, $99 for a pair of headphones from a brand-new manufacturer is a much easier ask than a smartphone — even a $400 one.
Image Credits: Brian Heater
In the meantime, the company has worked diligently to build out a brand. Pei’s biggest strength has been his ability to build community. It was a key piece of OnePlus’ early successes, and he’s doing his best to recapture that magic with Nothing. For the phone, that’s meant things like invite-only purchasing (something that happens to dovetail nicely with those supply chain issues), crowd equity investing and, yes, NFTs. Scarcity isn’t a concept one tends to think about when discussing a mass-produced product like a phone, but maybe there are lessons to be learned from crypto and hype beasts cultures.
Aesthetic consistency is another shortcut for building a brand. When we broke the news that the company was working on a phone back in March, we noted:
Details around the forthcoming device are thin, though the source notes that the product will share a similar design language and “elements of transparency” seen in Nothing’s first product.
It’s safe to say that the report bore out. The clear back, coupled with the “Glyph” LED lighting arrangement is, by far, the phone’s most striking visual element, sharing a language with Nothing’s transparent earbuds. Stripped of that aspect, it, well, looks an awful lot like an iPhone. “I’ve gotten that feedback,” Pei told me when I brought this up. “It’s the most efficient use of space.”
Is the current iPhone some platonic ideal of smartphone design? I guess it is until it isn’t, and someone else figures out something better. Perhaps this speaks to another kind of limitation: physical design and use of space. Sure, Nothing could have gone out of its way to produce something entirely different, but 1) good luck finding a manufacturer that will work with you and 2) you’re suddenly catapulting yourself in the world of function over form. There’s certainly some wiggle room to play with, but a phone needs to be functional first, and then you can start worrying about the other stuff.
Ultimately, when you choose utility, you’ve got to find other ways to stand out as a true alternative in the samey world of handsets. That’s the liminal space the Nothing Phone occupies. It’s a kind of thought experiment into how one can go about differentiating oneself in a product category that’s already so mature and well defined.
Image Credits: Brian Heater
One thing that’s undeniable, however, is that the form factor is solid. The combination of glass and metal, coupled with the heft of the device, affords the Phone (1) a premium feel. It’s not heavy — certainly not for a phone this size — so much as substantial. Build-wise, there was never point I felt like I was carrying around anything but a flagship.
The company determined that bleeding-edge specs weren’t the hill to die on, either. This much is understandable. Going head-to-head against Samsung and Apple in an all-out spec war is a game you’re going to lose. This is most glaringly obvious in the case of the chipset. The inclusion of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G+ chip puts the device firmly in the mid-range category. Like pretty much every other aspect of building your first phone in 2022, there are trade-offs.
I’d assumed the decision was largely budgetary. I suspect that still played a factor in the decision, but ultimately Nothing’s choice not to go all-in on the latest flagship chip was a bit wonkier than that. Pei said the decision to go with a TSMC fab — rather than Samsung — is what pushed it over the edge. “It was a difficult choice, because we knew there would be people saying, ‘hey what are you doing? It’s not the latest.’ But I think it’s the most responsible choice in the seven series.”
Performance-wise, the phone can hang. It performs well, particularly will those devices in its price range. Sure, there are trade-offs that come with not adopting this year’s latest flagship chip, but nothing that should have a profound impact on your daily use. The chips are coupled with a solid starting 8GB of RAM and 128GB of memory. There are three tiers, in all, ranging from £399 ($473) to £499 ($592) for 12GB/256GB — again, positioning the product in the mid-tier.
Image Credits: Brian Heater
It’s a good value — especially for a first-time phone. The resources required to launch a device like this are tremendous. Pei certainly alluded to the fact that a large portion of the company’s raise thus far is tied up in the Phone (1), making this phone’s success nearly make or break for the young company. For that reason, I wouldn’t have been entirely surprised if Nothing passed some of the financial burden along to the consumer.
Much like the spec conversation, pricing your product similarly to Apple and Samsung’s is a fool’s errand. Firstly, $1,000+ phone prices are one element that has throttled phone sales. Finding a better price point makes the product more competitive, and opens up additional markets like India, which tend to be more interested in mid-tier pricing (a big market for Nothing, as it happens). It’s likely no coincidence that pricing was also a key part of OnePlus’s strategy, as well.
The back is, meanwhile, the most unique design element I’ve seen on a handset recently, aside from foldable screens. Is it a gimmick? Yes, 100%. It’s a decent one, however, with some real functionality. It’s also the reason the device ships with a warning for people with epilepsy and light sensitivity. That’s not something you see with most handsets — and partially an indication of just how bright this thing gets at full power. The “Glyph” is made from 900 LEDs, covered by a diffusing layer that makes it look like one connected light source. The design is certainly unique. “They told me it’s the kanji character for ‘love,’” Pei told me about his design team. “But I call bullshit on that. I can’t see it.” It can be programmed for a variety of different notifications, but it takes some time to remember which is which.
Image Credits: Brian Heater
In the center is a 5W wireless charging coil. Choose “Power Share” from the drop-down menu, pop a pair of earbuds in the center and the ring will light up to let you know it’s doing its thing. The battery life overall isn’t head-turning, but the 4,500mAh battery will get you through a day and a half of normal use with no problem.
The OLED screen measures in at 6.55 inches. It’s a great-looking display at 2400 x 1080, with a smooth 120Hz refresh rate. The screen is on the larger side, which, in turn, makes for a larger phone. I’m on the taller side of the human spectrum and had no problem porting the handset around, but that could certainly be a limited factor for many users.
The 16-megapixel front-facing camera sits behind a hole punch in the display. It has a built-in night mode and is capable of shooting video in 1080. A pair of rear-facing 50-megapixel cameras sit atop each other on the rear, their respective housings creating a small camera bump. The overall quality of images is quite sharp, and the system has some built-in tricks, including the inclusion of a macro mode and clever use of the two cameras to double as a depth detector. Overall, it’s a solid implementation and an impressive showing for a first-time phone-maker.
Image Credits: Brian Heater
The device itself isn’t rated for dust or waterproofing. Pei told me that the decision to skip the official process came down to time. Each side of the product is covered in Gorilla Glass 5, which should protect against drops, and rubber elements inside the phone will — at the very least — help it deal with rain and splashes. I wouldn’t, however, go swimming with the phone just yet.
Nothing’s Phone (1) is a refreshing change of pace in a smartphone market that has lost much of its sense of fun. It’s not a revolutionary device — but marketing material aside, that was never really the point. It has to be a solid and reliable Android handset at its foundation, and on that front it’s a success. It’s novel enough to turn heads and service as the starting point for an interesting company.
But is it cool? That’s ultimately in the eye of the beholder. It’s definitely fun, functional and nice to look at. Too bad it’s not available in the U.S.
Nothing Phone (1) review

New report examines the number of downloads it takes to hit the top of the App Store

New analysis indicates it’s gotten harder to get an app to the top of the App Store, in terms of downloads, over the past several years. According to new data from app intelligence firm Sensor Tower, the number of downloads needed for an app to break into the No. 1 position on Apple’s iPhone App Store in the U.S. has climbed by 37% since 2019. Specifically, it estimates an app now requires approximately 156,000 downloads on a given day to hit the top spot, up from 114,000 daily downloads back in 2019.
But to be clear, downloads alone don’t move an app to the top of the charts. It’s only one of several factors that Apple’s ranking algorithm takes into account for managing its Top Charts.
Image Credits: Sensor Tower
In the early days of the App Store, Apple soon realized that downloads alone would give developers an easy way to buy their way to the No. 1 spot.
It then expanded its ranking algorithm to make it more complex — and more of a mystery. Another firm, Apptopia, believes it has reverse-engineered the current version of this algorithm, which is said to consider numerous factors like velocity, app usage, quantity of new users and more.
That said, downloads are still a part of the equation here, and an interesting factor to examine, given how little information there is about how Apple’s App Store ranks actually work.
Among the new findings, Sensor Tower noticed that Apple appeared to have adjusted the ranking algorithm to address the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
It reports that in 2020, the number of downloads it was taking an app to hit No. 1 on the U.S. App Store hit a record high of 185,000, up 62% year-over-year. That would be in line with the overall boost seen in app downloads and usage that was occurring as consumers stayed at home under government lockdowns, while schools, stores and workplaces closed.
Getting to the same position on Google Play was easier at that time, however, as the number of daily downloads required grew just 5% year-over-year to reach 87,000 in 2020.
Image Credits: Sensor Tower
Since then, the number of daily downloads needed to reach No. 1 has declined on both marketplaces as post-COVID trends (or rather, post-lockdown trends) have normalized app usage.
This year, Sensor Tower estimates apps must reach a median of 156,000 daily installs to reach No. 1 on the App Store, as noted above, but Android apps now need just 56,000 installs, down 33% from the 83,000 required in 2019.
Breaking into the top 10 on the U.S. App Store also requires more effort than hitting that same position on Google Play.
Per the report’s findings, it now takes approximately 52,000 daily downloads to get into the Overall Top 10 on the App Store, up 2% from the 51,000 required to reach the Top 10 in 2019. But Android apps only need 29,000 daily downloads, which is down 9% from 2019 levels.
Image Credits: Sensor Tower
Image Credits: Sensor Tower
Still, these figures are approximations reached from trends across the respective app stores.
When looking at figures in more detail on a per-category basis, there are different trends to be found. For instance, on the App Store, it’s tougher to break into the Top 10 free iPhone apps for those ranked in the Entertainment category than others like Shopping, Social Networking, Travel or Finance. Android is similar in that it also sees Entertainment as needing more daily installs, but this is followed by the Shopping, Tools, Finance, then Communication categories.
Image Credits: Sensor Tower
Image Credits: Sensor Tower
It’s worth pointing out that these trends only hold true for mobile apps, not mobile games. That’s an entirely different matter.
When looking at mobile games, Sensor Tower found iPhone games now require a median of 93,000 downloads to hit No. 1 while Android games need 37,000 installs. These figures are down from 2019 levels, dropping by 46% and 68%, respectively.
The report also notes that, historically, it’s taken fewer installs for games to get into the Top 10. So far in 2022, iPhone games have needed 26,000 daily downloads to reach the Top 10, down 40% from 43,000 in 2019. And Android games needed just 16,000 daily installs, down 52% from 33,000 in 2019.
While much of the new report is focused on the U.S. market, Sensor Tower did examine how the U.S.’s Top 10 compared to other countries.
Here, it found that it’s much tougher for non-game apps in China to reach the Top 10 — requiring more than twice the number of daily downloads as in the U.S. at 108,000 (China) versus 52,000 (U.S.)
But on Android, it’s India that is the most difficult market to top, requiring 292,000 daily downloads to reach the Top 10 in the free charts for non-game apps.
Image Credits: Sensor Tower
Image Credits: Sensor Tower
While the data here is worth investigating, this analysis doesn’t take into account the other factors apps and games require to climb the charts, so it’s not a complete picture of how or why apps can climb to the top of the app stores.
In addition, there have been some hints that Apple may have been adjusting its algorithms even more in recent weeks, as bigger apps like Facebook, Netflix, Snapchat and others have taken ranking hits since around mid-April, Apptopia told us last month, when we inquired how relative unknown apps had been finding their way to the Top 10. This could be a test or a more permanent change meant to give smaller apps a chance to stand out and be discovered amid the tech giants, but more time will be needed to conduct that analysis.
Still, this sort of tweaking could help to highlight a variety of apps that are benefitting from marketing, promotions, and other trends. This might explain why Planet Fitness is No. 2 on the Top Free Charts in the U.S. today, for instance — the company gave teens free gym passes for the summer. Meanwhile, DIRECTV’s recent consolidation of its apps has driven it to No. 3, while the newcomer social networking app LiveIn, popular among teens, is now sitting higher than Facebook and Snapchat at No. 7.
New report examines the number of downloads it takes to hit the top of the App Store

Apple just had its best quarter in India

When Apple reports its earnings on Wednesday, you can expect mentions of India on the call.
Apple shipped more than 1.5 million iPhone units in India in the quarter that ended in December, up 100% year-on-year, making this its best quarter in the world’s largest smartphone market to date, according to research firms Counterpoint and CyberMedia.
Thanks to the improved sales of older generation iPhone 11, iPhone XR, iPhone 12 and the newer iPhone SE, Apple doubled its market share in India to 4% in the quarter, the research firms said.

Overall, Apple shipped more than 3.2 million iPhone units in India in 2020, up 60% year-on-year, Counterpoint said.
The shipment growth comes months after Apple launched its online store in the country and offered customers a wide-range of financing and upgrade options, AppleCare+, and lucrative perks such as a free set of AirPods with the purchase of iPhone 11. The company plans to open its first physical retail store in the country later this year.
For more than a decade, Apple has struggled to sell its handsets in India because of the expensive price tags they carry. Most smartphones that ship in India are priced between $100 to $200. Samsung, and a group of Chinese smartphone vendors including Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo flooded the market in the past decade with their affordable smartphones.
None the less, in recent years Apple has visibly grown more interested in the country that is also one of the world’s fastest growing smartphones markets. The company’s contract manufacturers today locally assemble a range of iPhone models and some accessories — an effort the company kickstarted more than two years ago. (A recent violent event at an Indian facility of Wistron, one of Apple’s contract manufacturers, however, underscored some of the challenges Apple will grapple with as it looks to scale its local production efforts in the country.)
That move has allowed Apple to lower prices of some older generation iPhone models in India, where for years the company has passed import duty charges to customers. The starting price of the iPhone 12 Pro Max is $1,781 in India, compared to $1,099 in the U.S. (Apple has yet to start locally assemble the iPhone 12 units.) The AirPods Pro, which sells at $249 in the U.S., was made available in India at $341 at the time of launch. AirPods Max, similarly, is priced at $815 in India, compared to $549 in the U.S. (It doesn’t help that an average person in India makes $2,000 a year.)
Unlike most foreign firms that offer their products and services for free in India or at some of the world’s cheapest prices, Apple has focused entirely on a small fraction of the population that can afford to pay big bucks, Jayanth Kolla, chief analyst at Convergence Catalyst, told TechCrunch.
That’s not to say that Apple has not made some changes to its price strategy for India. The monthly cost of Apple Music is $1.35 in India, compared to $9.99 in the U.S. Its Apple One bundle, which includes Apple Music, TV+, Arcade and iCloud, costs $2.65 a month in India.

Apple just had its best quarter in India

YouTube and WhatsApp inch closer to half a billion users in India

WhatsApp has enjoyed unrivaled reach in India for years. By mid-2019, the Facebook-owned app had amassed over 400 million users in the country. Its closest app rival at the time was YouTube, which, according to the company’s own statement and data from mobile insight firm App Annie, had about 260 million users in India then.
Things have changed dramatically since.
In the month of December, YouTube had 425 million monthly active users on Android phones and tablets in India, according to App Annie, the data of which an industry executive shared with TechCrunch. In comparison, WhatsApp had 422 million monthly active users on Android in India last month.

Factoring in the traction both these apps have garnered on iOS devices, WhatsApp still assumes a lead in India with 459 million active users1, but YouTube is not too far behind with 452 million users.
With China keeping its doors closed to U.S. tech giants, India emerged as the top market for Silicon Valley and Chinese companies looking to continue their growth in the last decade. India had about 50 million internet users in 2010, but it ended the decade with more than 600 million. Google and Facebook played their part to make this happen.
In the last four years, both Google and Facebook have invested in ways to bring the internet to people who are offline in India, a country of nearly 1.4 billion people. Google kickstarted a project to bring Wi-Fi to 400 railway stations in the country and planned to extend this program to other public places. Facebook launched Free Basics in India, and then — after the program was banned in the country — it launched Express Wi-Fi.
Both Google and Facebook, which identify India as their biggest market by users, have scaled down on their connectivity efforts in recent years after India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, took it upon himself to bring the country online. After he succeeded, both the companies bought multibillion-dollar stakes in his firm, Jio Platforms, which has amassed over 400 million subscribers.
Jio Platforms’ cut-rate mobile data tariff has allowed hundreds of millions of people in India, where much of the online user base was previously too conscious about how much data they spent on the internet, to consume, worry-free, hours of content on YouTube and other video platforms in recent years. This growth might explain why Google is doubling down on short-video apps.
The new figures shared with TechCrunch illustrate a number of other findings about the Indian market. Even as WhatsApp’s growth has slowed2 in India, it continues to enjoy an unprecedented loyalty among its users.
More than 95% of WhatsApp’s monthly active users in India use the app each day, and nearly its entire user base checks the app at least once a week. In comparison, three-fourths of YouTube’s monthly active users in India are also its daily active users.
The data also showed that Google’s eponymous app as well as Chrome — both of which, like YouTube, ship pre-installed3 on most Android smartphones — has also surpassed over 400 million monthly active users in India in recent months. Facebook’s app, in comparison, had about 325 million monthly active users in India last month.
When asked for comment, a Google spokesperson pointed TechCrunch to a report from Comscore last year, which estimated that YouTube had about 325 million monthly unique users in India in May 2020.
A separate report by research firm Media Partners Asia on Monday estimated that YouTube commanded 43% of the revenue generated in the online video market in India last year (about $1.4 billion). Disney+ Hotstar assumed 16% of the market, while Netflix had 14%.

Google invests in Indian startups Glance and DailyHunt

1 For simplicity, I have not factored in the traction WhatsApp Business and YouTube Kids apps have received in India. WhatsApp and YouTube also maintain apps on KaiOS, which powers JioPhone feature handsets in India. At last count — which was a long time ago — more than 40 million JioPhone handsets had shipped in India. TechCrunch could not determine the inroads any app has made on this platform. Additionally, the figures of YouTube on Android (phones and tablets) and iOS (iPhone and iPad) will likely have an overlap. The same is not true of WhatsApp, which restricts one phone number to one account. So if I have WhatsApp installed on an iPhone with my primary phone number, I can’t use WhatsApp with the same number on an Android phone — at least not concurrently.
2 WhatsApp Business appears to be growing fine, having amassed over 50 million users in India. And some caveats from No. 1 also apply here.
3 Users still have to engage with the app for App Annie and other mobile insight firms to count them as active. So while pre-installing the app provides Google an unprecedented distribution, their apps still have to win over users.

YouTube and WhatsApp inch closer to half a billion users in India