On Thursday, Verizon announced their Q4 2015 earnings, and during their earnings conference call, the company’s CFO Fran Shammo talked a bit about Go90 their new mobile video service aimed at cord-cutters or millennials. Verizon launched Go90 in 2015, after having bought AOL earlier on in the year. The main reason for them purchasing AOL was for the video content they own as well as their ad platform both of which would be used in Go90 as ads are what will make Verizon money. Verizon didn’t share how many users are using Go90 during the conference call, but did state that the app had been downloaded over 2 million times. Also added that the app has exceeded internal expectations.
Go90 isn’t expected to turn a profit in 2016, in fact the company doesn’t expect it to turn a profit for about two years. While Go90 is available for everyone – even those not on Verizon’s network – Verizon does have some big bills to pay for content licenses. The service includes AwesomenessTV, Vice, CollegeHumor, New Form Digital, Endemol Beyond USA, Discovery Communications, Scripps Networks Interactive, Viacom, Warner Brothers Blue Ribbon Content and LeBron James’ Uninterrupted will also be coming soon to Go90. With all of those content suppliers, it’s making Go90 not as profitable, yet. But Verizon definitely expects it to be profitable in the near future. That’s the entire reason that they created Go90.
Verizon is seeing the smartphone market start to plateau and is looking at other ways to continue driving in revenue. And that’s where Go90 comes in. While we don’t really need another streaming video service, it’s still nice to have the option, especially with it not being exclusive to Verizon customers. We’ll have to see in a few years, if it as good as Verizon has expected it to be. Who announced today that they have 112 million retail connections. Which puts them at number one for the largest carrier in the United States, ahead of AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint. It’s earnings week this week and next, so expect to see more about AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and other companies earnings coming out as well.