The global economic recession has terrible consequences. People are losing their jobs, pensions, and even homes. Depressing times indeed. But for the telecom sector, there may lay a silver lining. This beacon of light premise suggests that carriers who offer entertainment options may benefit from today’s economic climate. The thinking being that consumers will choose home based entertainment options over going out to save money. They’ll stay at home to watch VOD, or rent DVDs, or feast on the growing buffet of Internet video options, rather than venture out for more expensive choices. Consumers are definitely looking for ways to stretch a dollar. Verizon even coined the term ‘enterstayment,’ to describe the phenomena. They may be right.
Verizon’s latest quarterly results are supporting their enterstayment premise. They added 303k FiOS TV subscribers last quarter – their best quarter on record for new TV adds. You can also add Netflix’s latest quarterly results as evidence for the enterstayment argument. Netflix added 718k subscribers to their DVD rental and Internet streaming subscription services. The 718k subscriber number was double what both the company and independent financial analysts predicted. These two examples indicate that consumers may indeed be looking at their growing home based entertainment options more favorably. With no end in sight for the economic downturn, carriers with entertainment options may have a growing opportunity.
unfortunately for us, this silver lining is not translating into more VOD buys. People are watching more VOD, its just the free stuff.