UBS report citing iTunes downloads claims Verizon Go90 video service is struggling
Analyst firm UBS claims Verizon Communications’ Go90 video service is having trouble gaining traction in an increasingly competitive market.
The firm, as reported by Investor’s Business Daily, cited download numbers from Apple’s iTunes store, where Go90 is ranked around No. 300 in overall downloads and No. 20 in terms of other “entertainment” applications. Those other applications include the likes of Dish Network’s Sling, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, which UBS noted have a much higher penetration rate among the target youth markets.
“We believe Go90 will be hard-pressed to mount a meaningful challenge to mobile video and social networking leaders YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Netflix and Hulu,” wrote UBS analyst John Hodulik in the report. “That said, Verizon is pulling various levers to ramp up interest in and usage of Go90, including more live and exclusive content and free data for Verizon Wireless customers.”
UBS does admit that using such metrics is not the most scientific way to measure success, but is “highly correlated to the medium and long term.”
One bit of good news from the report was an observation the Go90 platform is doing better among iPhones compared with iPads, which seems to play into Verizon’s push for a mobile video application.
Verizon, which launched the platform last fall, has expressed the need to be patient with the service. Speaking at a recent investor conference, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo said the carrier was still in the early stages of a two- to three-year process in rolling out the platform.
“There is still a lot of progression and evolution that has to happen in that platform,” Shammo said. “This was not something that was launched last year that was going to take off immediately like a new smartphone. This is going to be a progression and evolution for us over the next two to three years. But as we bring in some of the content we’re seeing some pleasing things around since we launched the NBA, since we launched music, some of the original content that we’re getting from AwesomenessTV, we’re starting to learn of what’s pleasing to the customer, what works, what doesn’t work and we’ll continue to evolve this product through 2016.”
One challenge Shammo noted was in getting consumers to pay for the service, explaining the company would look to capitalize on other ways to drive traffic and revenues. This was highlighted by Verizon’s acquisition of AOL last year, which included the Adtech platform deemed “critical” in the carrier’s launch of Go90.
“We know that wallet share is an issue going forward,” Shammo said. “So we have to get people to consume more but we know that they are not going to continue to pay for that consumption so we’ll monetize that via the advertising model.”
A report earlier this year from Apptopia claimed Go90 had hit 2 million downloads at the end of 2015, citing a skewering in overall downloads to devices powered by Google’s Android operating system.
Verizon Wireless has recently tried to goose Go90 adoption by giving its customers an additional two gigabytes of high-speed data per month, while reports indicate the carrier is actually moving to wave all data access for its customers.
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