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Cars drive past a sign featuring Mickey Mouse at the entrance to Walt Disney World on the day that portions of the theme park, including the Magic Kingdom, reopened to guests after being closed since mid-March due the coronavirus pandemic.
Paul Hennessy | SOPA Images | Getty Images

This round, Disney beat Netflix.

Disney’s continued growth, juxtaposed with a disappointing quarter for Netflix, was the big story of this quarter’s earnings season. Disney benefited from a handful of popular movies that it placed directly on its Disney+ service in the quarter ended June 30, such as “Cruella” and “Luca,” while Netflix is banking on a return to growth next quarter, when hit originals such as “Sex Education” and “Money Heist” return to the service.

Disney+ and Hotstar, Disney’s Indian streaming service, added 12.4 million new subscribers from last quarter, while Netflix added just 1 million new customers. Last quarter, Disney added almost 9 million new Disney+ subscribers and Netflix added about 4 million new customers.

“Last quarter, we had a little bit of weakness in streaming subs both at Netflix and Disney. The weakness continued for Netflix, but it didn’t for Disney,” said Mark Zgutowicz, an analyst at Rosenblatt Equity Research, in a CNBC interview. “Disney+ is about 90 million subs behind Netflix globally now. With this number today, it’s tracking toward a 20 million net add gain on Netflix this year.”

All of the big streaming video players have reported earnings this quarter. The following is a rundown of where all the major streaming services stand:

Netflix

  • 209 million global paying subscribers (Up 1 million from last quarter)
  • 73.95 million subscribers in U.S. and Canada
  • ARPU for U.S. and Canada: $14.54

Disney

  • Disney+ (including Hotstar): 116 million subscribers, $4.16 global ARPU (Up 12.4 million from last quarter)
  • Hulu SVOD only: 39.1 million subscribers, $13.15 ARPU
  • Hulu SVOD+Live TV: 3.7 million subscribers, $84.09 ARPU
  • ESPN+: 14.9 million subscribers, $4.47 ARPU

Amazon Prime Video

  • More than 175 million Amazon Prime members have streamed shows and movies in the past year (No updates given during second-quarter earnings)
  • Prime memberships cost $12.99 a month or $119 a year, but offer many benefits other than streaming video — including free one-day or two-day shipping on most Amazon packages. Amazon does not break out ARPU by Prime members.

Apple

  • Apple TV+ subscribers: ? (No updates given during second-quarter earnings)
  • ARPU: ?

Apple‘s free one-year trials to Apple TV+, which it gives away with new hardware such as iPhones, are now starting to expire for many customers, which could spur the company to offer an update on its next earnings call.

NBCUniversal’s Peacock

  • 54 million “signups” (Up 12 million from last quarter)
  • More than 20 million monthly active accounts
  • ARPU: ?
  • Three tiers: Free with commercials, $4.99 a month for fewer ads and more content, $9.99 a month ad-free

Comcast‘s NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC, successfully used the Tokyo 2020 Olympics Games to push Peacock subscriptions. NBCUniversal will likely add more Olympics-related signups next quarter, as it reported Peacock statistics only about half way through the Games.

While the company has not released an official figure for ARPU yet, NBCUniversal estimated in January that Peacock would deliver $6 to $7 a month across its three tiers.

WarnerMedia’s HBO and HBO Max

  • 67.5 million global subscribers (Up 3.6 million)
  • 47 million domestic subscribers (Up 2.8 million)
  • ARPU: $11.90 domestically

AT&T raised its year-end global subscriber forecast for HBO Max to 73 million from 70 million in its second-quarter earnings statement. As of March, it expects 120 to 150 million subscribers by the end of 2025.

ViacomCBS

  • More than 42 million subscribers across Paramount+, Showtime, Noggin, BET+, and other platforms (Up about 6.5 million, the “overwhelming majority” of which came from Paramount+)
  • Over 52 million monthly average Pluto TV users (Up 2 million)
  • ARPU: ?

Average revenue per user remains a question mark for ViacomCBS, which has still chosen not to reveal the statistic.

“We’ve been on a journey of increased disclosure over time,” ViacomCBS CEO Bob Bakish told CNBC. “We will continue to evolve disclosure.”

Discovery

Starz

  • 28.9 million global subscribers (Down 600,000), 16.7 million of which are streaming
  • ARPU: About $6 per month

Lionsgate‘s Starz actually lost total subscribers in the quarter, though the decline relates to cancellations of the company’s linear service. Streaming customers rose 58% year-over-year to 16.7 million globally.

AMC Networks

  • Total subscribers: ?
  • ARPU: ?

AMC Networks said earlier this month it expects to have at least 9 million paid streaming subscribers across its platforms by the end of the year. The company’s flagship streaming product is AMC+, which may see a boost in subscribers after signing a deal with Verizon earlier this week, giving certain subscribers a free trial of the product for 6 or 12 months.

Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.

WATCH: Why this analyst is staying neutral on Disney despite earnings beat

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Nvidia to join Dow Jones Industrial Average, replacing rival chipmaker Intel

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Nvidia to join Dow Jones Industrial Average, replacing rival chipmaker Intel

CEO of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, speaks during the launch of the supercomputer Gefion, where the new AI supercomputer has been established in collaboration with EIFO and NVIDIA at Vilhelm Lauritzen Terminal in Kastrup, Denmark October 23, 2024.

Ritzau Scanpix | Mads Claus Rasmussen | Via Reuters

Nvidia is replacing rival chipmaker Intel in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, a shakeup to the blue-chip index that reflects the boom in artificial intelligence and a major shift in the semiconductor industry.

Intel shares were down 1% in extended trading on Friday. Nvidia shares rose 1%.

The switch will take place on Nov. 8. Also, Sherwin Williams will replace Dow Inc. in the index, S&P Dow Jones said in a statement.

Nvidia shares have climbed over 170% so far in 2024 after jumping roughly 240% last year, as investors have rushed to get a piece of the AI chipmaker. Nvidia’s market cap has swelled to $3.3 trillion, second only to Apple among publicly traded companies.

Companies including Microsoft, Meta, Google and Amazon are purchasing Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs), such as the H100, in massive quantities to build clusters of computers for their AI work. Nvidia’s revenue has more than doubled in each of the past five quarters, and has at least tripled in three of them. The company has sginaled that demand for its next-generation AI GPU called Blackwell is “insane.”

With the addition of Nvidia, four of the six trillion-dollar tech companies are now in the index. The two not in the Dow are Alphabet and Meta.

While Nvidia has been soaring, Intel has been slumping. Long the dominant maker of PC chips, Intel has lost market share to Advanced Micro Devices and has made very little headway in AI. Intel shares have fallen by more than half this year as the company struggles with manufacturing challenges and new competition for its central processors.

Intel said in a filing this week that the board’s audit and finance committee approved cost and capital reduction activities, including lowering head count by 16,500 employees and reducing its real estate footprint. The job cuts were originally announced in August.

The Dow contains 30 components and is weighted by the share price of the individual stocks instead of total market value. Nvidia put itself in better position to join the index in May, when the company announced a 10-for-1 stock split. While doing nothing to its market cap, the move slashed the price of each share by 90%, allowing the company to become a part of the Dow without having too heavy a weighting.

The switch is the first change to the index since February, when Amazon replaced Walgreens Boots Alliance. Over the years, the Dow has been playing catchup in gaining exposure to the largest technology companies. The stocks in the index are chosen by a committee from S&P Dow Jones Indices.

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Super Micro’s 44% plunge this week wipes out stock’s gains for the year

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Super Micro's 44% plunge this week wipes out stock's gains for the year

Charles Liang, chief executive officer of Super Micro Computer Inc., during the Computex conference in Taipei, Taiwan, on Wednesday, June 5, 2024. The trade show runs through June 7. 

Annabelle Chih | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Super Micro investors continued to rush the exits on Friday, pushing the stock down another 9% and bringing this week’s selloff to 44%, after the data center company lost its second auditor in less than two years.

The company’s shares fell as low as $26.23, wiping out all of the gains for 2024. Shares had peaked at $118.81 in March, at which point they were up more than fourfold for the year. Earlier that month, S&P Dow Jones added the stock to the S&P 500, and Wall Street was rallying around the company’s growth, driven by sales of servers packed with Nvidia’s artificial intelligence processors.

Super Micro’s spectacular collapse since March has wiped out roughly $55 billion in market cap and left the company at risk of being delisted from the Nasdaq. On Wednesday, as the stock was in the midst of its second-worst day ever, Super Micro said it will provide a “business update” regarding its latest quarter on Tuesday, which is Election Day in the U.S.

The company’s recent challenges date back to August, when Super Micro said it would not file its annual report on time with the SEC. Noted short seller Hindenburg Research then disclosed a short position in the company and wrote in a report that it identified “fresh evidence of accounting manipulation.” The Wall Street Journal later reported that the Department of Justice was in the early stages of a probe into the company.

Super Micro disclosed on Wednesday that Ernst & Young had resigned as its accounting firm just 17 months after taking over from Deloitte & Touche. The auditor said it was “unwilling to be associated with the financial statements prepared by management.”

A Super Micro spokesperson told CNBC that the company “disagrees with E&Y’s decision to resign, and we are working diligently to select new auditors.” Super Micro does not expect matters raised by Ernst & Young to “result in any restatements of its quarterly financial results for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2024, or for prior fiscal years,” the representative said.

Analysts at Argus Research on Thursday downgraded the stock in the intermediate term to a hold, citing the Hindenburg note, reports of the Justice Department investigation and the departure of Super Micro’s accounting firm, which the analysts called a “serious matter.” Argus’ fears go beyond accounting irregularities, with the firm suggesting that the company may be doing business with problematic entities.

“The DoJ’s concerns, in our view, may be mainly about related-party transactions and about SMCI products ending up in the hands of sanctioned Russian companies,” the analysts wrote.

In September, the month after announcing its filing delay, Super Micro said it had received a notification from the Nasdaq indicating that its late status meant the company wasn’t in compliance with the exchange’s listing rules. Super Micro said the Nasdaq’s rules allowed the company 60 days to file its report or submit a plan to regain compliance. Based on that timeframe, the deadline would be mid-November.

Though Super Micro hasn’t filed financials with the SEC since May, the company said in an August earnings presentation that revenue more than doubled for a third straight quarter. Analysts expect that, for the fiscal first quarter ended September, revenue jumped more than 200% to $6.45 billion, according to LSEG. That’s up from $2.1 billion a year earlier and $1.9 billion in the same fiscal quarter of 2023.

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Apple to buy Pixelmator, the iPhone image editing app with AI features

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Apple to buy Pixelmator, the iPhone image editing app with AI features

Peopl walk outside Steve Jobs Theater at the Apple Park campus before Apple’s “It’s Glowtime” event in Cupertino, California, on Sept. 9, 2024.

Nic Coury | AFP | Getty Images

Apple will buy Pixelmator, the creator of image editing apps for Apple’s iPhone and Mac platforms, Pixelmator announced Friday in a blog post.

Pixelmator, a Lithuanian company, was founded in 2007, and in recent years has been best known for Pixelmator and Pixelmator Pro, which compete with Adobe Photoshop. It also makes Photomator, a photo editing app.

Apple has highlighted Pixelmator apps over the years in its keynote product launches. In 2018, Apple named Pixelmator Pro its Mac App of the year, citing the company’s enthusiastic embrace of Apple’s machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities, such as removing distracting objects from photos or making automated color adjustments.

We’ve been inspired by Apple since day one, crafting our products with the same razor-sharp focus on design, ease of use, and performance,” Pixelmator said in its blog post.

Apple does not acquire as many large companies as its Silicon Valley rivals. It prefers to make smaller acquisitions of companies with products or people that it can use to create Apple features. Neither Pixelmator nor Apple provided a price for the transaction.

Pixelmator said in its blog post that there “will be no material changes to the Pixelmator Pro, Pixelmator for iOS, and Photomator apps at this time.”

Earlier this week, Apple released the first version of Apple Intelligence, a suite of features that includes photo editing abilities such as Clean Up, which can remove people or objects from photos using AI.

Apple has acquired other popular apps that received accolades at the company’s product launches and awards ceremonies.

In 2020, Apple bought Dark Sky, a weather app that eventually became integrated into Apple’s default weather app. In 2017, it bought Workflow, an automation and macro app that eventually became Shortcuts, the iPhone’s scripting app, as well as the groundwork for a more capable Siri assistant.

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