Subscription Economy News: Week of 11/25/2019

Every week, we bring you the top stories and analyses from the global Subscription Economy.

E-Book Subscription Service Scribd Raises $58 Million

Excerpts from an article by Anthony Ha on TechCrunch

Scribd has raised $58 million in new funding led by growth firm Spectrum Equity.

The company first launched as a document-sharing service in 2007 before creating an e-book subscription in 2013. It now offers access to a library of e-books, audiobooks, newspapers and magazines for $8.99 per month.

At the beginning of this year, the company announced that it had more than 1 million paying subscribers. It also said it was seeing more than 100 million visitors each month (many of them brought in by the free document-sharing), it’s been profitable since 2017 and it’s bringing in $100 million in annual recurring revenue.

Co-founder and CEO Trip Adler said the new funding “will enable us to continue to operate sustainably and efficiently while accelerating our growth, product innovations, content acquisition and continued investment in our employees.”

For more, read the full article on TechCrunch.

DAZN Up To 8M Global Subscribers

Excerpts from an article by Steven Impey on SportsProMedia

Global sports streaming service DAZN is closing in on eight million subscribers worldwide, having almost doubled its customer base in the past six months.

According to sources, the over-the-top (OTT) platform, which expanded into nine markets following the launch of its Brazilian and Spanish operations earlier in the year, has seen rapid growth since surpassing four million subscribers in June. DAZN’s US operation represents roughly ten percent of the platform’s global subscriber base.

A DAZN spokesperson said: “As a private company, we don’t publish our subscriber numbers. But we are pleased with our performance and growth around the world.”

DAZN was first launched in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Japan in August 2016, before adding the US, Canada and Italy to its portfolio.

For more, read the full article on SportsProMedia. Learn how Zuora is helping streaming companies like DAZN succeed with a subscription business model. 

Joyn Launches Subscription Service For €6.99/Month

Excerpts from an article by Jorn Krieger on Broadband TV News

ProSiebenSat.1 and Discovery have expanded their joint German streaming service Joyn with premium version Joyn Plus+.

For €6.99 per month, customers receive over 60 live TV channels in HD quality, pay-TV channels ProSieben FUN, Sat.1 emotions, kabel eins Classics, Eurosport 2, Discovery Channel and Animal Planet, a selection of films and series from online video store maxdome as well as additional exclusive content.

For Joyn Plus+ customers, a large part of the Joyn catch-up service is available in HD quality and largely without advertising.

For more, read the full article on Broadband TV News.

How 3D Printing Company Carbon is Trying to Shape the Future of Manufacturing

Excerpts from an article by Kevin Stankiewicz on CNBC

There is a subscription for everything, some say. Of course, they don’t mean it literally. They’re just trying to prove a point about how expansive the subscription economy has become.

It has even reached the world of 3D printing, thanks to $2.5 billion start-up Carbon.

“We have the world’s first piece of manufacturing hardware ever to go out via subscription model so it’s infinitely upgrade-able,” co-founder and executive chairman Joseph DeSimone told CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Monday.

Carbon’s printers, DeSimone explained on “Mad Money,” are “a really important part to future-proof people from obsolesce.”

For more, read the full article on CNBCLearn how Zuora is helping manufacturers such as Caterpillar and NCR transform in the Subscription Economy.

On-Demand Audio, Video Streams Pass 1 Trillion This Year For The First Time

Excerpts from an article by Dan Rys on Billboard.com

For the week ended Nov. 21, U.S. audio and video on-demand streams passed 1 trillion for the first time ever in a calendar year, tallying 1.002 trillion streams so far this year, according to Nielsen Music. At the same time last year, there were 765.2 billion audio and video on-demand streams in the U.S.

Overall, that has represented 31% growth year-over-year to date; if that rate continues, by the end of 2019, the number of audio and video on-demand streams in the U.S. could reach 1.181 trillion, up from 901 billion for the entirety of 2018, according to Nielsen Music.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the current population of the United States is 330 million people. That means so far in 2019, every single American would have streamed 3,030 songs on average to reach 1 trillion.

For more, read the full article on Billboard.com

And for more Subscription Economy resources and events, head to www.subscribed.com.

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