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US stocks are about to usher in a new round The earnings season.

In the next few weeks, the US stock media industry will have some important performance reports, Netflix took the lead in the first shot of this earnings season, AT&T, Amazon, Apple, VisaNie and other companies will follow up, the following quarterly streaming media earnings release time and analyst expectations:

Netflix

The earnings report was released on October 16.

US local time on Wednesday, streaming giant Netflix released its third quarter earnings report as of September 30, 2019. The financial report shows that Netflix’s third-quarter revenue was $5.24 billion, up 31% year-on-year, slightly lower than the expected $5.25 billion; net profit attributable to Netflix was $665 million, up 65% year-on-year; earnings per share were $1.47. Significantly higher than the expected $1.05. After the earnings report, Netflix shares soared more than 8%.

In the third quarter, US streaming media paying subscribers increased by 517,000, while the expected growth was 800,000, compared with 1.5 million in the same period last year. In the third quarter, international streaming media paying subscribers increased by 6.26 million, compared with an expected 6.2 million. The same period last year was 7.3 million.

Comparing with the second quarter of 2019, Netflix’s revenue reached $4.92 billion, a 26% increase from the $3.907 billion in the same period last year; net profit was $271 million, a 29% decrease from the $384 million in the same period last year; In the “paid member” data, the newly added 2.7 million people only accounted for about half of the previous 5 million expected. The US local members did not increase or decrease, and for the first time in eight years, they “regressed” and lost 126,000 users.

In this regard, Netflix does not believe that the main reason for the decline comes from the competition of peer companies, but it comes down to the over-optimistic forecast (especially the increase of 9.6 million new paying users in the first quarter), meanwhile, The original content programs on the platform of the quarter, such as “Muscle”, “Colored Glasses”, “Murder Suspicious Cloud” and other repertoires did not really drive the number and income of subscribers.

Netflix’s operating cash flow has been deteriorating due to the transition from an aggregation platform to a content production and operations platform. Netflix said the company is taking steps to curb free cash outflows due to the huge cost of content. In the third quarter, Netflix’s free cash flow totaled $551 million, compared to $859 million in the same period last year. The company reiterated its expectation of a free cash flow of approximately $3.5 billion for the full year and expects free cash flow to improve in 2020 compared to the current fiscal year.

In the fourth quarter, Netflix was in every respectThe expectations seem to be very conservative. The total number of users worldwide is expected to increase by 7.6 million in the last three months of this year, far below the current analysts’ estimate of 9.23 million; the fourth quarter is expected to be $0.51 per share, lower than the market expectation of $0.82; Quarterly revenue is expected to be $5.44 billion, which is $70 million lower than analysts’ general expectations.

Although Netflix will improve by expanding its base revenue and operating margins in 2020, the increase in subscription fees and the diversity of user choices will have an impact on the company’s revenue.

AT&T

Let’s first review the important business data of the US telecommunications giant last quarter. In the second quarter, AT&T’s revenue was $44.96 billion, up 15.3% year-on-year, exceeding analysts’ forecast of $44.85 billion. The consolidated EBITDA (profit before interest, tax, and amortization) was $15 billion, a year-on-year increase of 13%.

But on the user side, AT&T lost a total of 778,000 traditional US pay TV subscribers in the second quarter, surpassing the first quarter of 544,000. The number of users in this business has dropped from 23.64 million in the second quarter of 2018 to this year. The second quarter was 21.58 million. The number of users that are constantly losing is absolutely negative for telecom companies: 1. Fundamentally reducing the company’s revenue and profitability; 2. Requiring higher user acquisition and retention costs; 3. To some extent, business There is a problem with the mode or the control of the user’s needs.

For AT&T’s future development plan, Chief Financial Officer John Stephens gave four directions – one is driven by post-paid smartphones, users upgraded to unlimited packages, and prepaid units, and wireless business will continue to grow. Second, to maintain EBITDA stability through bandwidth revenue, cost management, advertising revenue growth and the introduction of AT&T TV. The third is the trend of video business. Video loss is expected to continue to increase in the second half of the year, but the company will continue to focus on improving the quality of video users, taking rigorous promotions and retaining offers. The fourth is a new video product.

The introduction of AT&T TV and streaming media service HBO Max is expected to be available nationwide by 2020. HBO Max’s content includes Friends and Sesame Street (exclusive copyright), and will also cover Reese Witherspoon, Jos Verden, Jordan Peel, Stephen King and producer Grieg Bo Original programs and movies by Randy et al.

A few months ago, aggressive investor Elliott Management asked AT&T to conduct a broader business evaluation after purchasing $3.2 billion in AT&T stock, saying that AT&T needed to consider divesting some of its non-core assets, and its M&A activity “distracted. The Group’s attention has led to “poor operating results”.

For AT&T’s later developments, opportunities or sources of media content, the company’s free cash flow for the full year of 2019 is around $28 billion, which can be used to open up the path between Warner Media and AT&T’s traditional telecommunications business. Deep integration of assets and telecom distribution platforms.

Amazon

The earnings report was released on October 24.

In the previous quarter’s earnings report, net revenue was $63.4 billion, up 20% from $52.9 billion in the same period last year; net profit was $2.6 billion, up 4% from $2.5 billion in the same period last year. Second-quarter results exceeded revenue expectations but did not meet earnings expectations; earnings per share were $5.22, down from 6% of Wall Street analysts’ expectations. At the same time, the company gave financial guidance for the third quarter – revenue of 66-70 billion US dollars, corresponding to a year-on-year growth rate of 17% -24%; operating profit of 2.1-3.1 billion US dollars, corresponding to a year-on-year increase of 3.2% to 4.4%.

The lower-than-expected profitability of the quarter, regulatory issues, and the agency’s weaker expectations for third-quarter earnings expectations have left investors optimistic about the movement of Amazon’s stock. After the second quarter results announcement, Amazon’s share price fell.

Amazon wants to reverse the “look-ahead” phenomenon that appears in the market. In addition to building a higher level of infrastructure “cloud” and increasing investment to seize more resources and market share, member service Prime is also its An important catcher of new breakthroughs. What is different from other companies is that Amazon does not directly profit from selling content. Instead, it puts the Video service into the category of Prime membership services along with e-commerce and express delivery.

EMarketer’s statistics show that by the end of this year, Amazon Prime Video will have 96.5 million subscribers, up 9% from the previous year. By 2021, the service will have an audience equivalent to one-third of the total US population. Amazon’s Prime Video service has a minimum monthly fee of $12.99, and subscription services have net sales of $4.7 billion in the second quarter, up 37% year-on-year.

In addition to the large number of members, the retention rate of Prime members is equally high. Amazon Prime’s second-year renewal rate is about 95%. Its first-year renewal rate is over 90%, and the monthly renewal rate is around 73%. . This renewal data is basically inconsistent with Costco, the originator of the staff.

Although IP is not rich and selective, Amazon’s content quality has always been superior: the masterpiece “Transparent Family” has won the Golden Globe Award and the Emmy Award many times, and is the first best episode to win the Golden Globe Award. Streaming media; in the film, “Manchester by the Sea” won the 89th Oscar for best original script, and was the first Oscar for the streaming media platform.

Comcast

The earnings report was released on October 24.

In the second quarter of this year, Comcast’s total revenue reached $26.9 billion, lower than market expectations. Pay TV users decreased by 224,000 in the second quarter, a 60% increase over the same period last year; broadband network users added 209,000, higher than the market expectation of 204,000, but lower than the 260,000 increase in the same period last year .

With the exception of some projects, Comcast earned 78 cents a share, up from 69 cents a year ago and also exceeded market expectations by 75 cents. Overall, more and more users have abandoned pay-TV to network entertainment, and broadband network services have become a new driving force for the company’s performance growth.

Comcast has lost a lot in the ever-changing market for pay-TV, so they are considering acquiring their business through acquisitions, but the $39 billion acquisition of British Sky TV is also uncertain due to the turmoil in international politics. After emphasizing the importance of business services as a growth opportunity, Comcast will continue to focus on video innovation.

Comcast’s NBC Global’s second-quarter sales totaled $8.2 billion, which was basically the same as last year. In order to promote the video streaming business, the company will bring new profits. NBC Universal will launch video streaming in April 2020. Serve Peacock and plan to promote it during the summer Olympics of the same year.

Just like HBO Max, Peacock is not currently setting a fee, and Disney’s pricing strategy may affect Peacock’s monthly fee adjustment from the original plan of $12.

Oppenheimer upgrades Comcast’s rating from “flat with the broader market” to “outperform” with a target price of $54.

Apple

First of all, congratulations to Apple. Apple’s share price has swept over the past year’s gloom, and its share price has hit record highs. Before the release of the Beijing time on October 17, the closing price was 234.37 US dollars, with a market value of 1.06 trillion US dollars. At present, both Apple and Microsoft have a market capitalization of more than one trillion US dollars, alternating with the world’s highest market value.

Apple said at the autumn conference this year that Apple TV + services will be available on November 1st. Membership fees are only $4.99 per month and will be available in more than 100 countries. This price is quite cheap for streaming membership fees. In the case that the price of the video member itself is already very low, Apple has announced that it will purchase Apple’s latest iPhone, iPod, Mac or other hardware products, and receive a free Apple TV video member for one year.

In terms of content investment, Apple has invested a total of 6 billion US dollars to shoot a number of IP, including “Dawn of the Morning”, “The Truth”, “See”, “Dickinson”, etc., only these homemade dramas The cost is equivalent to 11.2% of total revenue in the previous quarter. At the same time, Apple also said that new content will continue to be online or updated every month in the future. <