| Weekly News Roundup |
| 1. Double-digit growth for the optical retail chain: “Our subscription business has thrived in tougher times” – Dagens industri The Swedish optical retail chain Synsam registered its fastest growth ever during the first quarter. All in all, sales increased 19 percent. The eyewear subscriptions segment grew even faster: totaling a 27 percent increase in revenue. “We are constantly working on our cost structure to ensure that we capture the results throughout the entire income statement.” Read more 2. Swedish car-sharing service Heap files for bankruptcy – Breakit The Gothenburg-based company aimed to let you rent your neighbor’s car instead of owning one yourself or renting from traditional companies. Their ambitions were significant, and the company wanted to first expand from Gothenburg to Stockholm and then further. However, the platform never really took off, and in this tougher funding climate, their engine has stopped. “The company, whose car-sharing platform was based on a keyless mobile application, was founded in the spring of 2018. It incurred a loss of approximately 8 million in 2021. At the time of bankruptcy, there were around 100 cars on the platform. Heap had 15,000 users on the platform by the end of last year.” Read more 3. The LEGO subscription service Brick Borrow bags an investment – B1M Brick Borrow enables anyone to rent LEGO sets from its huge library, build them and then return them again, for a monthly subscription fee. Now B1M, billing itself as the world’s most subscribed-to video channel for construction, invests an undisclosed sum in Brick Borrow and announces a partnership. “Co-founded in the UK by Tom Zanelli and Cameron Mitchell in 2022, Brick Borrow has seen remarkably strong growth to date. […] “This is a milestone moment for Brick Borrow. Through our subscription service, we aim to make LEGO® more accessible to everyone, regardless of their financial constraints.” Read more 4. Neeva’s ad-free, subscription-based search engine is shutting down – Neeva Neeva has announced it’s shutting down, less than two years after publicly launching its $4.95 per month search engine. The company says building a search engine from the ground up was the easy part, relatively speaking. The hard part: Convincing users to try it out. “Contrary to popular belief, convincing users to pay for a better experience was actually a less difficult problem compared to getting them to try a new search engine in the first place.” Read more 5. Almost 5 million people are using Netflix’s ad tier – The Verge Recently revealed data suggests that the ad-supported tier of the streaming giant is showing promise, six months following its introduction. “We should note that monthly active users don’t equate to actual subscriber numbers, and Netflix has remained tight-lipped about how many subscribers the ad tier actually has. The figure was last estimated to be around 1 million back in March following what was believed to be a slow start to the service.” Read more |
1. “Why Spotify is about to raise prices for the first time in 12 years” – Bloomberg
Wall Street is getting worried that the music industry is slowing down, and in addition, top streaming services are nearing maturity in major Western markets, notes Bloomberg, suggesting that the most immediate solution is to raise prices. Netflix has almost doubled its prices in the US over the last 12 years while Spotify has made no changes.
“Record labels have long felt the price of streaming should go up, but have limited power to force tech companies to do much of anything. […] If Ek doesn’t do it soon, music companies may force his hand. They are going to require regular increases as part of their next contracts.”
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2. “The perils of launching a subscription product too early” – Simon Owens
New media channels often rush into launching subscription services too early and then find themselves tethered to a business model that may not be suitable for the stage the company is in, writes media analyst Simon Owens – using his own newsletter as an example.
“Audience size isn’t everything, but all things being equal it’s a hell of a lot easier to monetize a larger audience than a smaller one. And one of the biggest downsides of subscription products is that they can produce a huge drag on an outlet’s ability to scale its audience.”
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3. Why some auto companies want you to subscribe to EV batteries – MIT Technology Review
Instead of owning the batteries that power our EVs, some companies – including the Chinese automaker Nio – want us to rethink our relationship and are pushing batteries as a service, writes MIT Technology Review in an article, digging into the implications of this shift – for both users and businesses.
“The ability to rent batteries could mean less stress about battery degradation for drivers, according to Fei Shen, the VP of power management at Nio. “It’s not necessary for them to worry about it at all, because they can swap this battery at any time, whenever they want,” he says.”
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