Netflix Inc on Wednesday reported an unprecedented jump in subscribers in the first quarter of this year, pushing the streaming television service membership above 60 million.
Its milestones included passing the 40 million member mark in the US and the 20 million mark internationally, pushing the number of subscriptions to its streaming television service above 62 million overall, according to quarterly earnings figures.
“Our original series, documentaries and comedy specials are being enthusiastically received, and member engagement is at an all-time high,” Netflix said.
“Members streamed 10 billion hours in [the first quarter], more evidence that consumers around the world are embracing the Internet TV revolution,” the company said.
Netflix added a record 4.9 million new members globally during the first three months of this year.
A strong US dollar hurt financial results during the quarter, with foreign-exchange “headwinds” offsetting better-than-expected subscriber growth, the company reported.
Netflix’s international streaming business posted a loss of US$65 million and was expected to have a loss of US$101 million in the current quarter, earnings figures indicated.
Netflix reported an overall profit of US$24 million in the quarter, compared with US$53 million in the same period a year earlier.
Netflix remained confident in its strategy of building its reputation and ranks of subscribers with original content such as House of Cards and Orange is the New Black.
The company said it is not worried about competition from freshly launched HBO Now.
“Netflix and HBO are not substitutes for one another given differing content,” Netflix said. “We think both will continue to be successful in the marketplace.”
Video streaming services that are or may be offered by titans such as Sony Corp or Apple Inc were seen by Netflix as competing more with pay television bundles.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day