churn
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66% of ex-NTT DoCoMo users reportedly choose iPhone
One of the rather unsung points TUAW posted after the Apple Event on Tuesday is that Apple had inked a deal for Japan's leading mobile carrier -- NTT DoCoMo -- to carry the iPhone for the first time. While that doesn't sound like a big deal, it stands to help out NTT DoCoMo a lot. The company has 61 million subscribers, but churn (subscribers leaving to go elsewhere) has been a problem. How much of a problem? Well, research firm Kantar Japan says that a whopping two-thirds of those who have left DoCoMo for greener pastures have done so to buy an iPhone. The deal is big for DoCoMo, which formerly dominated the Japanese mobile market and has seen its market share shrink. But it's also a big deal for Apple, which now has full carrier distribution in the island nation. Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore thinks that an additional 10 million iPhones couid be sold in Japan in 2014, with most of them being the higher end iPhone 5s. That's enough to add about $2 to Apple's earnings per share for 2014, just from adding one carrier.
Storyboard: Roleplaying for churn
Odds are good that you're going to be moving on from your current game of choice at some point. I'd even ramp those odds up to nearly absolute under certain circumstances (if you're the sort who claims newer games aren't engaging whilst hopping from game to game on a regular basis, for example). This leads to a bit of a problem with a lot of roleplaying stories because there's a very real possibility that your character's arc is going to be truncated as a result. It's not intentional, but it happens just the same. You spend time building up character relationships at launch, and then as the three-month mark rolls around, people start leaving, playtimes drop off, you get tired of some of the game's systems... and the next thing you know, the people who cared about the character you've been building for some time have all evaporated, leaving you to either make your character relevant again to a whole new group of players or just stop bothering. One of the things I've been both considering and playing with of late is the idea that maybe this can be embraced instead of feared. Rather than planning something of indeterminate length, you can try working with the assumption that you've got a more limited window to work within and pace yourself according to that.
The Game Archaeologist's excellent EverQuest Online Adventures: The highlights
In the pantheon of Sony Online Entertainment's flagship EverQuest franchise, there is a whole family of MMOs gathered around the table every evening. There's Papa EverQuest, looking a little wrinkled and worn but also radiating fame and authority. Next to him is Mama EverQuest II, a powerful matron of entertainment if there ever was one. They look proudly down the table at a bassinet where Baby EverQuest Next lies, cooing as it grows into the future generation of this family. Then, in the next room over is a cabinet. The cabinet is locked. Inside that cabinet is a weird abnormality that certainly looks like a member of the family, but he hasn't seen the light of day in quite some time. He subsists on the scraps of an aging console and the fading loyalty of fans, hoping against odds that one day he'll be allowed out for a stroll or something. His name is Cousin EverQuest Online Adventures, the EQ MMO nobody mentions. EQOA is a strange abnormality in SOE's lineup. While it was one of the very first console MMOs and heir to the EverQuest name, it was quickly eclipsed in both areas by other games and left alone. Yet, against all odds, it continues to operate on the PlayStation 2, eight years and counting since its debut. This month the Game Archaeologist will crack open that cabinet and give this interesting MMO a few weeks of attention and care. I think it's about time, don't you?
Verizon and AT&T combine to sell 5.8 million iPhones in Q1 2011
This morning Verizon released its quarterly earnings for Q1 2011. While the wireless carrier did not reveal its iPhone sales figure in the press release, its earnings conference call confirms Verizon sold 2.2 million iPhones in its first six weeks of sales (compared to the 3.6 million reported by AT&T for the first three months of 2011, a 2x longer period). Combined, Verizon and AT&T sold 5.8 million iPhones, which means that total US sales account for about 30 percent of the 18.6 million Apple sold worldwide in the quarter. Apple COO/acting CEO Tim Cook mentioned on yesterday's Apple earnings call that US sales were up 155 percent year-over-year, and iPhone sales in greater China were up 250 percent versus the year-ago quarter (both leading the curve of 113 percent growth in total sales). According to AT&T, its iPhone churn rate remained steady in the 1st quarter, which suggests most Verizon iPhone sales come from current Verizon Wireless customers who waited patiently for the carrier to land the iPhone. It will be interesting to see how these numbers play out over the next year and a half. A growing number of AT&T iPhone customers will come off their current 2-year contracts and have a choice of carriers. Will the Verizon iPhone lead to a mass exodus from AT&T, as theorized, or will AT&T continue to hold its own? How many would-be carrier jumpers will wait for the hypothetical autumn release of the iPhone 5?
Sprint posts best customer gains in five years
The decision to move to WiMAX instead of LTE will probably be second-guessed by pundits and investors for years to come, but regardless, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has emerged as one of the wireless industry's great comeback kids now that he appears to be succeeding in his goal of turning the carrier's tailspin right around. The latest victory comes in the form of Sprint's fourth quarter 2010 results, which reveal its largest subscriber gain since the first and second quarters of 2006 -- yes, 2006. Total adds were 1.1 million, though net postpaid adds were only 58,000, suggesting that prepaid services are the big push right now. Additionally, Sprint reported its lowest postpaid customer churn in the fourth quarter of any year in its history at 1.86 percent. On the downside, the company's still technically in the red, reporting an operating loss of $139 million on revenues of $8.3 billion. Overall, Hesse says they've got "momentum" heading into the new year, anticipating net customer additions in 2011. Give us an EVO 4G 2, Dan, and we might just be willing to agree.
From our readers: Guild Retention
We get lots of email from our readers trying to find their way though WoW. I'd like to take a moment to answer a question about membership retention. This also builds on a previous response regarding the trials and tribulations of starting a guild.Hi I been reading your posts and listening to the podcast and you recently made a new guild. I have a guild with around 140 members and we do some raiding weekly but every time I log off, it seems that people start arguing, and drama just starts building up. I went away for a couple days and when I come back from my vacation, Alot of people have left the guild. Maybe 10-15 people. Now they are stealing my members and have made a new guild. Do you have tips on member retaining and stuff like that, would be cool if you can do a post on that kind of stuff and how you work that out, thanksHello reader,Thank you for the email. One of the hardest things I've noticed about a guild is dealing with a certain amount of churn. Acceptance is the first step. People leave for all kinds of reasons. There will be those that come and go. The stronger you make your core, the stronger you make your guild.
Sprint posts Q3 net loss of $326 million, sees 1.3 million subs leave
Sprint's year just keeps getting worse. After losing over 900,000 customers last quarter while posting a $344 million loss, the company insistent on advertising with faux soap operas and in black and white (and yellow) is hanging its head once more. During Q3, the carrier saw 1.3 million net subscribers head for the exits, and it also reported a loss of $326 million. According to CEO Dan Hesse, Sprint "has yet to turn the corner," warning that the process of turning things around would be gradual. Moving forward, the company expects gross additions to "stabilize," while the turnover rate is apt to remain at around 2.15%. In related news, the provider's stock price has sunk around 60% in the past six months, and while that's surely bad news to shareholders, not many other mega-corps out there are doing tremendously better.[Via The New York Times]
Analyst talks World of Warcraft's churn rate
Analyst Mike Hickey from Janco Partners has taken a closer look at Blizzard's business, and has come away with some fascinating figures. Gamasutra reports that Hickey's investigations have shown that World of Warcraft's churn numbers are a surprisingly low 4-5% per month, while monthly revenues are in 'the low teens' per subscriber when averaged across the globe. (They're averaged that way due to the disparity in payment between US/EU subscribers and those in China.)With only 4 years in the market, World Of Warcraft continues to attract subscribers at an amazing rate ... WoW controlled 5.6 and 8.1 million subscribers in '05 and '06 respectively, up 45%. Through 09/30/07, WoW controlled 9.3 million subscribers, up a respectable 15% before the seasonally hot Q4 period.It should be noted that 1.) it's impossible to determine whether the churn rates are accurate and 2.) the average churn rate across the industry isn't a known statistic, so it's hard to say how 'off the norm' these rates are. I'm going to wager a guess it's usually more than 5%, though.
