Binge watching earning season!
Who’s watching?
The company that is single-handedly helping reduce the population in this world by making couples binge watch shows than letting them indulge in “other” activities⚤, reported another “blockbuster” earnings early this week.
Netflix and its charismatic founder-CEO Reed Hastings who are on a mission to spread their wings beyond Americas & Europe with an aggressive push in Asia & Middle East are getting ready to pop the champagne later this weekend when they cross the 100 million subscriber mark!
Like Frank Underwood, Netflix is a seasoned fighter when it comes to taking on the high & mighty — it survived the cash intensive DVD rental business & killed the twenty times its size behemoth Blockbuster and reinvented itself!
Netflix took to streaming when the world was still buffering & saw the subscription-only opportunity — well, it was all pre-planned according to Frank Underwood Reed Hastings — that’s why he named his baby “Net-flix” and not DVDbymail.com!
In its present streaming avatar, Netflix is taking on the mighty Amazon’s Prime Video service and the likes of ad-supported YouTubes and Facebooks of the world and still growing!
With a PE ratio in the 300s (Benjamin Graham will be turning in his grave), people still fancy the Netflix stock because of its sheer growth potential — as linear TV is going to be like the old fixed line telephones in the near future; the golden age of streaming television is already here!
⚤Take these stats if you don’t believe us:
Half a billion hour spent on watching Adam Sandler flicks by its users!
In January of this year, subscribers watched 250 million hours of programming on a single day (we hope it was not the inauguration day!)
A midlife crisis!
As America’s macho, handlebar-bearded HOG riders are retiring and the next gen millennial crowd hailing an Uber to commute & preferring to binge watch Netflix over weekend rides, the Made In America Harleys’ are getting rusted at dealerships — when was the last time you heard Harleys getting sold at a discount?
In its earnings report early Tuesday, Harley reported Motorcycle shipments falling by 14.7% with US sales dropping 5.7%.
Can this iconic brand survive its midlife crisis and come out stronger? If the CEO is to be believed, it’s planning to introduce 100 new bike models in the next 10 years with a target of adding two million new riders! The company might also get a much needed new life with Trump administration’s stated policy of Made in America brand push…. until then, let’s vroooom
The Big Blue Blues!
What does IBM do? No seriously… other than Watson beating its human jeopardyplayers, what does it do? This is one question that is sure to stump anyone out there!
This blue giant, which started off manufacturing bean counting machines and the original inventors of the “Personal Computer” acronym, is an aging war horse that has seen many a battle!
It has a history of misreading significant trends in the IT industry, but off late has been pushing Cloud and AI as the future with its traditional cash cows — that of selling legacy mainframe hardware and business consulting slumping to new lows.
On late Tuesday, IBM reported its 20th straight quarter of revenue slump with a 13% dip in its quarterly net income vs. a year ago.
Can IBM win the cloud battle against the likes of Amazon, Microsoft, and Google? Is the pie large enough for so many players or will IBM’s AI bet pay off? Eventually, we will find out… for now, let’s try to beat Watson at jeopardy!
