Category: Uncategorized

Singapore not a Lee empire?

Lee Hsien Loong steps down after 20 years (2004-2024) serving as the PM of Singapore. [3rd longest after Turkey and Russia (?); Putin had 8+12 years and started another 6-year term so 26 years at the end of current term]

Singapore had a Lee leader for 45 of its 59 years of nationhood. The new PM Wong won’t have a Lee leader waiting after him.

From my understanding, there is not much political freedom even though Singapore is a democracy.

Hope it may advance / experiment new norm for overseas Chinese.

I recently read a book on Qing dynasty. People’s life sounds a bit pathetic, although from population growth or national wealth perspective it looked very strong.

I don’t believe Chinese society always needs a strictly controlled system, which had been the case for thousands of years.

Eventually, there should be new form of civilization structure that’s very different from now.

Shortcuts is the preliminary format of Apple’s OS AI?

Apple Shortcuts has many drawbacks I think.

  • it functions depend on apps
  • you need to engineer or “low-code” the functions
  • debugging can be problematic
  • password/access is a big issue, which limit the functionality
  • daily impact looks limited. so far I haven’t used many in daily life, although I tried to..

However, it seems to me that on future hardware, users should be able to use verbal communication to replicate human interactions, in a way that even the hardware can’t distinguish if it’s AI or human. Or to imagine that you have an assistant to do all the work on iPhone for you, and that assistant is AI.

 

Investors’ concerns about Disney

Netflix has surpassed Disney in market cap.

What are the concerns for investors? especially vs. an investment in Netflix

1) asset heavy (theme park) model

Theme park risk is exposed during covid. Plus, as theme parks are located across the world, different jurisdictions can complicate the operation.

And it’s trying to expand. In the next 10 years, Disney plan to double global capex to $60bn. Much of that is probably due to the land bank – “In fact, Disney Parks has over 1,000 acres of land for possible future development to expand theme park space across its existing sites”.

It’s a truly unique experience, but also considered as a riskier one vs. Netflix’s spending on content.

And it requires consumer spending on theme parks to double? This might be possible if one family went to Disney Park once in the past decades, and is going to visit twice in the next decade; but could be a burden if one expects visits per year to double for a family.

2) caught up in US-China tension?

Netflix doesn’t directly operate in China, and its financial performance doesn’t depend on China. This can be a relief for investors, who usually don’t want to be caught up in geopolitical tensions.

3) unprofitable streaming?

It takes time to be profitable in streaming, with a stable subscriber basis and a good pricing strategy. It’s actually not that easy.

For CY2023q3, Disney streaming revenue is ~59% of Netflix. Disney had 199mn subscriptions across offerings, while Netflix had 247mn during the same time period, or 80% in terms of number of subscriptions.

Disney’s core Disney+ paid subscriptions are at 112.6 million as of Sep 2023 and lost $420 million in that quarter. Although loss has decreased, it take longer and a bigger scale to become a good income stream for Disney.

Comparing with Netflix, which got $16.64 / month from ~80mn paid membership in US & Canada, Disney got $7.5 / month for its 46.5mn US subscribers.

You can’t double the price overnight. Disney needs to increase its value delivered to consumers in streaming.

Disney announced price hike back in Aug, effective Dec 2023 – from $10.99 to $13.99 / month, or 27% hike for the non-ads plan in the US.

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New:

Source: https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1691641877

 

Old:

Source: https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/ad-supported-disney-subscription-tier-to-launch-in-the-u-s-on-december-8/

Netflix: there is a lot to like

Besides a single quarterly earnings beat, there are many things investor like. Netflix can appeal to both defensive and offensive investors.

1/ a stable positive FCF

For several quarters in a row, Netflix has delivered $1.5bn+ FCF/qtr, and expects 2024 FCF to be ~$6bn. Positive FCF is crucially important in today’s high-interest rate environment.

Btw, Netflix doesn’t need massive capex and doesn’t worry about utilization etc. However, Netflix does need to spend on contents.

This FCF is built upon a $17bn cash spend budget on content for 2024.

If not for the $1B in delayed spending due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, 2024 FCF should be $7bn.

$7bn with 4-5% required fcf yield implies a $140-175bn market cap, which was where Netflix was trading at in 2023.

2/ growing TAM

Investors like an expanding TAM – like Amazon’s flying wheel model.

Internationalization was the first step: 2012 Netflix had <5mn paid subscriptions (incl. Canada).

By the end of 2023 (in 11 years), Netflix has ~180mn paid members outside of US & Canada – a more than 36-fold increase.

Now, Netflix has pretty interesting upside in non-video streaming businesses: such as ads and gaming.

“It’s a $600B+ opportunity revenue market across pay TV, film, games and
branded advertising — and today Netflix accounts for only roughly 5% of that addressable market”

2023q4 Netflix letter to shareholders

3/ Shareholder return

2023Q1 buyback: $400mn

2023Q2 buyback: $645mn

2023Q3 buyback: $2.5bn

2023Q4 buyback: $2.5bn

Its capital allocation strategy:

The first priority for our cash is to reinvest in our core business
and to fund new opportunities like gaming and ads, followed by selective acquisitions;

Target maintaining minimum cash equivalent to roughly two months of revenue (e.g., about $5.4B based on Q1 revenue).

After meeting those needs, we anticipate returning cash to stockholders through share repurchases.