Hi Everyone. This is Take Off. We're like a hidden Easter egg in your favorite video game - surprising, delightful, and adding an extra layer of fun to your tech news consumption.

Here's what we're serving up today:

• Netflix Climbs The Top Rope 🎥

• Just Google TikTok It 🔎

• Asteroids ☄️

Netflix Climbs The Top Rope 🎥

Like the Paris Peace Treaty brought an end to World War II, another years-long battle seems to have a victor emerging. 

And we think that they’re more than ready to take The Crown. 

Enter the OG of Streaming - Netflix. 

Netflix announced their Q4-23 results last week and they were nothing short of amazing. 

Big Digits

It turns out that adding everyone’s two least favorite things in the world - ads and strict passwords - has worked out well for Netflix. 

The company blew past expectations on subscribers, reporting an addition of 13M new subscribers just the past quarter totalling its subscriber count to a mammoth 260M. 

They posted a revenue growth of 12% QoQ raking in $8.8B and forecasted a $9.2B Q1 2024. 

Ads Ads Ads

We’ve stated COUNTLESS times that for most consumer-facing technology businesses, all roads lead to ADS.

And it seems like Netflix is pouncing on this. The ad-supported plan made up 40% of new sign-ups. 

The company acknowledged in their earnings call how the ads business can be a significant long term revenue stream and are working persistently on scaling it up. 

Entering the Ring

Yes, you read it right. Netflix is now teaming up with WWE as it furthers its foray into live streaming, signing a punchy $5B deal to become the exclusive home of Raw from Jan 2025, marking its entry into the world of sports streaming. 

Yes, we still believe that WWE is a real sport!

The next battle-front for streaming is capturing market share in live-sports because that is where a lot of loyal eyeballs are which are great for …. you guessed it - Making money. 

Everyone has their Eyes on Live. Peacock recently streamed an NFL game to an estimated 23M viewers. Amazon pays $1B/year for Thursday night NFL, while Apple TV+ has a $2.5B deal for streaming MLS games for 10 years.

What’s your take on this? Do let us know by replying.

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Just Google TikTok It 🔎

Which app do you fire up when you want to search for the best tacos near you?

• If you’re a Boomer, it's definitely Google.

• If you’re a Millennial, it’s still mostly Google.

• If you’re a Gen-Z, it’s most likely Google TikTok.

Yes folks, that’s right. TikTok isn’t only giving competition to its social media arch nemesis, Meta, it’s also taking on Google for search.

To be sure, Big G is still the biggest mafia in town, holding 90% of the search engine market.

But increasingly, users, especially GenZ, are skipping Google search in favor of TikTok.

The Battle for Eyes and Ears

The ultimate prize for these behemoths is a BIG slice of the digital advertising pie.

Big G’s ad haul is expected to grow to $279 billion by 2027 with its market share being around 42%.

Tiktok is quickly progressing though with ad rev expected to reach $36 billion by 2027 lifting its share from 2.3% to 5.4%.

Why TikTok, Though?

There are 2 primary reasons for TikTok’s growing advertising business.

1. Lower Ad Prices

2. Higher Engagement

These 2 factors are essentially any marketer’s dream.

Tiktok has seen its user base explode in the past couple of years so there is much more supply on the platform compared to demand. This has led to lower ad prices.

TikTok’s biggest moat is its user engagement. The app commands one of the highest engagement rates of any media platform.

High engagement within the app means more opportunities to engage with advertisements, making dollar bills flocking to the platform for higher ROI.

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