Netflix Reports Rapid Growth

Netflix reported a 35% year-on-year increase in revenues, on a constant currency basis, for the third quarter of 2019 to 5.2 billion US dollars.  The company forecast revenue of 5.4 billion dollars for the fourth quarter, which would represent a year-on-year increase of 30%.

Netflix said it added 6.8 million paying subscribers in the third quarter, while its ARPU (average revenue per user) was up 12% on a constant currency basis. Netflix added that it is spending approximately 10 billion dollars of "P&L spend" on content and approximately 15 billion in cash on content in 2019. Source: Netflix statement

Deutsche Telekom Talks Up Networks

Deutsche Telekom reported a 2.9% year-on-year increase in revenues on an organic basis for the second quarter of 2019 to 19.7 billion euros. T-Mobile USA, which posted a revenue increase of 5.1%, was again the main growth engine, but the German business also managed 1.2% growth.

"The foundation of our strong growth remains our good investments in networks," said Timotheus Höttges, CEO of Deutsche Telekom. "In Germany, we already passed over 22 million homes with super vectoring, speeds up to 250 megabits per second. And we are on track for our 28 million customers or households being approached by year-end....German LTE coverage, close to 98% full year target. Our telco added another 1,400 new sites in the last 12 months. This is on track with our ambitious plans to increase our site footprint by 1/3 by 2021." Source: DT statements and presentations

One Day Delivery Lifts Amazon

1) Includes product sales and digital media content sold on a transactional basis. Digital product subscriptions that provide unlimited viewing or usage rights are included in Subscription services.
(2) Includes product sales where customers physically select items in a store. Sales from customers who order goods online for delivery or pickup at our physical stores are included in “Online stores.”
(3) Includes commissions and any related fulfillment and shipping fees, and other third-party seller services.
(4) Includes annual and monthly fees associated with Amazon Prime memberships, as well as audiobook, digital video, e-book, digital music, and other non-AWS subscription services.
(5) Primarily includes sales of advertising services.


Amazon reported a 21% year-on-year increase in revenue to 63.4 billion US dollars in the second quarter, excluding the impact of currency movements. Sales in North America grew 20%, while international sales rose just 12%, impacted by currency movements. Amazon Web Services boosted revenues 37% to 8.4 billion dollars.

Revenues from subscription services, which includes Amazon Prime, rose 39% to 4.7 billion dollars. “Customers are responding to Prime’s move to one-day delivery — we’ve received a lot of positive feedback and seen accelerating sales growth,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. “Free one-day delivery is now available to Prime members on more than ten million items, and we’re just getting started. A big thank you to the team for continuing to make life easier for customers.”Source: Amazon statement

Alphabet Maintains Strong Growth

Alphabet reported a 22% year-on-year increase in revenues at constant currencies to 38.9 billion US dollars for the second quarter, driven by mobile search advertising, YouTube and cloud services.  That increase is down slightly from the 23% rise achieved in the same quarter in 2018.

Capital spending in the second quarter was up 12% year-on-year to 6.1 billion dollars, while R&D spending rose 21% to 6.2 billion dollars. Source: Alphabet statement

Model 3 Motoring for Tesla

Tesla reported a 59% year-on-year increase in sales for the second quarter to 6.35 billion US dollars, as shipments of its Model 3 vehicle leapt 321%. "This is an important milestone as it represents rapid progress in managing global logistics and delivery operations at higher volumes," said Elon Musk, Tesla's CEO. "Local production and improved utilisation of existing factories is essential to be cost competitive in each region. We remain on track to launch local production of the Model 3 in China by the end of the year and Model Y in Fremont by fall of 2020. We are also accelerating our European Gigafactory efforts and are hoping to finalise a location choice in the coming quarters. We are working to increase our deliveries sequentially and annually, with some expected fluctuations from seasonality. This is consistent with our previous guidance of 360,000 to 400,000 vehicle deliveries this year." source: Tesla statement 

AT&T's Entertainment Group Sheds Subs

AT&T's Entertainment Group reported revenues of 11.4 billion US dollars for the second quarter, down 1% year-on-year due to declines in TV subscribers and legacy services. Video revenues fell 1.7% to 8 billion dollars, as declines in premium TV subscribers were only partially offset by the growth of over-the-top revenues. However, IP broadband revenues climbed 6.5% to 2.1 billion dollars, as subscribers shifted to higher-speed services, including AT&T Fiber. Source: AT&T documents 

Microsoft on Cloud Nine

Microsoft reported a 12% year-on-year increase in revenues for the quarter ending June 30th to 33.7 billion US dollars,  boosted by a 39% rise in commercial cloud revenue to 11 billion dollars. Revenue in the Productivity and Business Processes division was up 14% to 11 billion dollars,  while revenue in the More Personal Computing division was up 4% to 11.3 billion dollars.

"Our commercial cloud business is the largest in the world, surpassing 38 billion dollars in revenue for the year, with gross margin expanding to 63%," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. "We are building Azure as the world’s computer, addressing customers’ real-world operational sovereignty and regulatory needs. We have 54 data center regions, more than any other cloud provider, and we were the first in the Middle East and in Africa." source: Microsoft statement

Ericsson Feels 5G Bounce

Ericsson reported a 7% year-on-year increase in sales on a like-for-like basis to 54.8 billion Swedish krona (5.8 billion US dollars) for the second quarter. It said the increase was driven by growth in its networks division in North America and North East Asia.

Börje Ekholm, CEO of Ericsson, said: "We see strong momentum in our 5G business with both new contracts and new commercial launches as well as live networks. To date, we have provided solutions for almost two-thirds of all commercially launched 5G networks....Initially, 5G will be a capacity enhancer in metropolitan areas. However, over time, new exciting innovations for 5G will come with IoT use cases, leveraging the speed, latency and security 5G can provide." Source: Ericsson statement