Архив метки: Southeast Asia

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

Tiger Global backs SaaS omnichannel social commerce platform SleekFlow in $8M funding

Social commerce — the process of buying and selling products or services directly through social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok — is becoming the most natural way for consumers to make purchases since people use social media and messaging apps almost every day.
SleekFlow, an omnichannel social commerce platform that helps businesses build customer flow automation from messaging and live video to transactions, has closed $8 million Series A funding led by Tiger Global Management. Transcend Capital and AEF Greater Bay Area Fund, managed by Gobi Partners GBA, also participated in the round.
“Consumers now spend 80 percent of their time on social platforms, and it is already a habit to discover and buy products directly from here,” said founder and CEO of SleekFlow Henson Tsai. “SleekFlow aims to drive this e-commerce revolution by being the top social commerce unified hub — merging conversations, product catalogs, payment solutions, and order management into one for businesses.”
Image Credits: SleekFlow
Founded in 2019, SleekFlow now serves more than 5,000 businesses across the globe, including NARS Cosmetics, Bossini, Lalamove Hong Kong and PSB Academy. The company claims that it saw approximately 500% revenue growth after its recent pre-Series A funding backed by Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund (AHKEF) in May 2021. (SleekFlow did not provide its baseline for that growth.)
The Hong Kong-headquartered startup will use the fresh capital for its market penetration into Southeast Asia, specifically Singapore and Malaysia, as well as the U.K. and other countries in Europe. In addition, the latest funding will enable SleekFlow to enhance its product development with fintech and data analytics functions, one-click checkouts via social media platforms, and easy in-chat payment integrations for online to offline (O2O) and e-commerce brands’ seamless workflow.
The startup has recently launched a fintech product social-to-payment feature to provide a comprehensive solution for both e-commerce and brick-and-mortar businesses. In Southeast Asia alone, about 90% of digital merchants use digital payments for profitability and survival, the company says, adding that the chat-to-checkout tool is significant in driving sales and conversions from various digital sales channels. SleekFlow also introduced a new sales and analytics and customer service performance tracking that helps users track and analyze consumer profiles and behaviors for personalized communications after its partnership with Shopify last November.
The global social commerce market is projected to rise to $6.2 trillion by 2030.
According to the company, one in five dollars spent on retail in Southeast Asia is transacted through social media, and more consumers are looking to businesses offering convenient communications. SleekFlow integrates multiple messaging channels such as Official WhatsApp Business API, Facebook Messenger, Instagram chat, SMS and Telegram to address the challenges of managing multiple messaging and social media platforms.
“Despite the economic downturn, the social commerce market is going stronger than ever, reaching $474 billion in 2021,” Chibo Tang, managing partner of Gobi Partners GBA said in a statement. “Eight in 10 U.S. businesses anticipate increased sales via social media within the next three years. SleekFlow’s innovative solutions will help these global commerce businesses meet the evolving needs of customers who are turning to social channels to purchase more than ever before.”
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Tiger Global backs SaaS omnichannel social commerce platform SleekFlow in $8M funding