Wells Fargo discusses ‘balance of power’ between Apple and carriers

“In a report issued Tuesday, analysts at Wells Fargo provide some initial thoughts on a potential Apple Inc. web TV streaming service,” Javier Hasse reports for Yahoo Finance.According to the Wells Fargo report, media executives think the service will be priced between $30 and $40 per month.”

“While the firm believes this could help revenue, it thinks ‘margins may be low when taking content and other costs into account,'” Hasse reports. “Rather, the analysts believe ‘this strategy could be to drive further lock-in to stem any threats of attrition and potential to gain share (i.e. hardware sales).'”

“So what does Wells Fargo think about Apple as a whole?” Hasse reports. “They believe ‘the positives of the current 6 cycle and perception as a relatively defensive stock to be offset by gross margin pressures and secular issues as it relates to a limited market cap opportunity in the existing product segments, and a potential balance of power shift back to wireless operators from handset vendors.'”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: $39.99 per month for a skinny bundle? Would you bite?

21 Comments

  1. A substantial discount to competing bundles is required for some people. Other people switch just because its Apple. Finally, some people switch because the bundle is skinnier.

    Give people multiple reasons and they feel good on all 3.

  2. The bundling idea might work IF customers are allowed to choose the TV Networks included in the package. Giving consumers a choice of included programming would offer an advantage of not paying for unwanted channels. A custom bundle for ever customer. 😀

  3. “They believe ‘the positives of the current 6 cycle and perception as a relatively defensive stock to be offset by gross margin pressures and secular issues as it relates to a limited market cap opportunity in the existing product segments, and a potential balance of power shift back to wireless operators from handset vendors.’” Anyone understand Klingon here?

    1. I think the general term is “word salad”. Just throw a bunch of stuff together that sounds like it ought to be OK and hope there is nothing toxic in the mix. Don’t take their missive as advice, take it as a warning.

    1. I’m just the opposite. I think the service should be totally free of charge, including the content stream. In this scenario the bundle/package would be supported by ad revenue. If they can better profile me then so be it. They could then charge more for ads across the entire ecosystem.

      I’m sure when Google gets into this space this is exactly what they will offer. Which service would win? The free one with unlimited viewing or the service for $20-$50 plus additional costs for exceeding data caps?

      Netflix is winning because they were one of the first to offer a wide variety of on-demand content, they offer one or two good movies a month, the offer their own content, the quality of the stream is good and the most important reason is because their service is inexpensive at under $10 a month.

  4. 1) Wells Fargo is a lame-ass bank that required a US government bailout. They lost my respect.

    2) Well Fargo has its head stuck up it’s JARGON:
    …the positives of the current 6 cycle and perception as a relatively defensive stock to be offset by gross margin pressures and secular issues as it relates to a limited market cap opportunity in the existing product segments
    Outrageous rhetoric, begging the question whether they have a clue what they’re actually talking about.

    Next!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.