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TECHNOLOGY Wednesday 19 april 2017

Netflix standing on the threshold of 100 million subscribers

MICHAEL LIEDTKE ily on original shows such
AP Technology Writer as “Stranger Things” and
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — “House of Cards” and sell-
Netflix is on the verge of ing its service at a relatively
surpassing 100 million glob- low price. Netflix’s subscrip-
al subscribers, a testament tions range from $8 to $12
to how much the video per month, with the most
streaming service has popular option at $10.
changed the entertain- “The model works from
ment landscape since its a consumer perspective
debut a decade ago. because it is such a good
The company will reach value,” Pachter said.
that milestone this week- In a measure of how much
end if its projections are Netflix subscribers like the
correct. Netflix made the service, Hastings said Mon-
prediction Monday with day that they collectively
the release of its first-quar- stream more than 1 billion
ter earnings. hours of programming per
The service added nearly week.
5 million subscribers during By comparison, Google
the first three months of the says about 1 billion hours
year, and will end March of video per day are
with 98.7 million customers watched on its mostly
in roughly 190 countries. This Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2017, file photo, shows Netflix on a tablet, in North Andover, Mass. free YouTube service. “We
Associated Press
THANK THE SMARTPHONE have YouTube envy,” Hast-
Over the past decade, most people in the United $1.90 to $149.15 in Mon- of the channel that was in- ings joked.
“what really did it for Net- States and then eventu- day’s extended trading, spired by Netflix’s success. WILL NETFLIX RAISE PRICES?
flix was the explosion of ally hopefully most people even though subscriber Other cable channels also Pachter and other analysts
phones and tablets that around the world,” Hast- growth during the first quar- are offering internet-only wonder how long Netflix
allowed people to watch ings said. ter came in slightly below options as more viewers, will be able to hold the line
video everywhere,” said Progress toward that ambi- management forecasts. especially younger peo- on price as its program-
Wedbush Securities ana- tious goal has helped drive STILL CHASING HBO ple, eschew traditional TV ming costs rise in tandem
lyst Michael Pachter. “But the company’s stock price For all its success, Netflix still packages and subscribe to with its appeal to a more
Netflix clearly had a vision progressively higher over has a ways to go before it streaming services instead. diverse international audi-
before those devices be- the past five years. In that catches up with HBO, the The trend has confronted ence. Movie and TV stu-
came so ubiquitous.” time, Netflix has added 72 popular pay-TV channel Netflix with more com- dios typically also demand
About 51 million of Netflix’s million more subscribers. that has served as its role petition in the battle for more money as more peo-
subscribers are in the U.S. The Los Gatos, California model. HBO has 134 mil- household entertainment ple subscribe to channels
By the end of this year, Pip- company currently has lion subscribers worldwide, budgets. Netflix so far to in an effort to make as
er Jaffray analyst Michael a market value of about including viewers paying has answered the chal- much as possible off their
Olson expects the majority $63 billion. Its stock rose for an internet-only version lenge by spending heav- content.q
of the company’s subscrib-
ers to be overseas. Netflix Computer pioneer Robert W. Taylor dies at 85
ended March with nearly
48 million subscribers out- WOODSIDE, Calif. (AP) — ect manager for NASA rate terminals to commu- PARC, where he was over-
side the U.S. Robert W. Taylor, who was when he directed funding nicate with the research- saw a team that helped
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings instrumental in creating the to Douglas Engelbart at the ers through their computer create the Alto,
expects the next 100 mil- internet and the modern Stanford Research Institute, systems. a pioneering personal
lion subscribers to come personal computer, has who helped develop the ARPANET, as it was known, computer.
more quickly than the first died. He was 85. modern computer mouse. evolved into the internet. The Alto supplied each re-
100 million, but he didn’t Taylor, who had Parkin- Taylor was working for the As Taylor predicted, the searcher with an individual
provide a specific timeta- son’s disease, died Thurs- Pentagon’s Advanced Re- limited communications workstation instead of shar-
ble during online video re- day at his home in the San search Projects Agency in tool morphed into a system ing time on a room-sized
view of the company’s first Francisco Peninsula com- 1966 when he shepherded that supplies people with mainframe. It was designed
quarter. munity of Woodside, his the creation of a single fingertip access to every- to use a graphical user in-
“Everybody watches TV son, Kurt Taylor, told the computer network to link thing from encyclopedias terface, which enabled
and nearly everybody has Los Angeles Times (http:// ARPA-sponsored research- to investment advice. the user to command the
the internet, so I don’t see lat.ms/2oerEuc) and the ers at companies and insti- A few years later, Taylor device through icons, win-
anything that’s going to New York Times (http://nyti. tutions around the country. went on to work at the Xe- dows and menus instead
stop Netflix from getting to ms/2nNyf2F). Taylor was frustrated that rox Corp.’s famous Palo of typing text commands in
In 1961, Taylor was a proj- he had to use three sepa- Alto Research Center, or computer language.q