All posts tagged: profitability

What’s next for The Atlantic after reaching profitability and 1m subs

What’s next for The Atlantic after reaching profitability and 1m subs

Published by skeptic

Recent covers of The Atlantic US current affairs magazine The Atlantic has reached two long-targeted milestones: becoming profitable and topping one million subscriptions. But chief executive Nicholas Thompson is resisting calls to use this moment to relax the paywall, go on a hiring spree or set off a load of experiments. Speaking to Press Gazette’s Future of Media Explained podcast, Thompson said: “The first thing I have to do is continue to be disciplined – we didn’t get to profitability by overspending and making a bunch of bets that were unlikely to pay off, right? We got to profitability by investing in areas where we had fairly high confidence of good returns. So continuing to do that is sort of step one. “Step two is going to be figuring out how to better diversify both our economic model but also what we produce and figure out ways to diversify our demographics, diversify the offerings of our journalism.” The 167-year-old magazine brand is owned by billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs, who took a majority stake through the Emerson …

Indian ride-hailing giant Ola cuts 180 jobs in profitability push

Indian ride-hailing giant Ola cuts 180 jobs in profitability push

Published by skeptic

Ola has let go its chief executive Hemant Bakshi, merely four months after making the appointment, and is cutting about 180 additional jobs, a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. The move from the Indian ride-hailing startup is aimed at “improving profitability,” its founder and chairman Bhavish Aggarwal told employees in an email Monday reviewed by TechCrunch. The Bengaluru-headquartered startup, which counts SoftBank and Tiger Global among its backers, is undergoing a “restructuring exercise” to gear up for its “next phase of growth,” Aggarwal, pictured above, wrote in the email. The move follows Ola ceasing its operations in the U.K., Australia and New Zealand earlier this month. Bakshi, a former HUL executive, was appointed as Ola chief executive in January this year. Ola, which competes with Uber in India, is looking to go public later this year, after the planned public debut of Ola Electric, a startup that spun out of the ride-hailing firm. Both the startups were founded by Aggarwal, who has since also founded the AI startup Krutrim, which became a unicorn …

Indonesia’s GoTo Says on Track for Profitability Despite First-Quarter Loss

Indonesia’s GoTo Says on Track for Profitability Despite First-Quarter Loss

Published by skeptic

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia’s biggest tech company PT GoTo Gojek Tokopedia Tbk posted a first-quarter underlying loss of 102 billion rupiah ($6.28 million), on Monday, but said it was on track for profitability, helped by its partnership with TikTok. It blamed the first-quarter loss, compared with 1.6 trillion rupiah a year ago and a 77 billion rupiah profit in the final quarter of last year, on planned investment and seasonal slowness in the on-demand services segment in January and February. “We expect even faster growth for the rest of the year, while also remaining committed to our profitability goals,” Group CEO Patrick Walujo said. China’s TikTok in December bought a majority stake in GoTo’s e-commerce unit Tokopedia. “Early results have been promising with compliance requirements fulfilled and early performance proving robust,” the company said in a statement. The company’s profitability, it said, will be driven by lower costs in running Tokopedia and increased income as Tokopedia is expected to grow faster compared with overall expansion in Indonesia. It also said GoTo expects to secure growth …

LG’s TV business return to profitability from Europe demand recovery, streaming

LG’s TV business return to profitability from Europe demand recovery, streaming

Published by skeptic

LG Electronics’ TV business has returned to profitability in the first quarter from the recovery of demand in Europe and the rising popularity of streaming services. For the entire quarter running from January to March, the South Korean electronic maker recorded 21 trillion won in revenue and 1.33 trillion won in operating profit. The revenue figure is the highest to date for the first quarter while operating profit dropped slightly from a year earlier it comes amid a global economic slowdown, LG noted. Home appliances sales contributed the lion’s share of profit with 940.3 billion won and a margin rate of 10.9% __ an impressive double-digit rate for sales of refrigerators and washing machines. TV sales also contributed 132.2 billion won, a return to profitability from the prior quarter for the business unit that suffered from low consumer demand last year. LG said TV demand was recovering in Europe and its revenue from the business increased 4.2% on the back of the launches of its new 2024 model TVs. The return to profit was credited …

After reaching profitability, carpooling platform BlaBlaCar secures 8 million debt line

After reaching profitability, carpooling platform BlaBlaCar secures $108 million debt line

Published by skeptic

BlaBlaCar is an iconic name in the French startup ecosystem. The carpooling and bus ticketing company has been around for so long that it’s hard to consider it a startup anymore. Still, BlaBlaCar is an extremely interesting company today due to its unique trajectory. What started as a scrappy online hitchhiking community became a startup that raised hundreds of millions and reached unicorn status. It then expanded to many countries across several continents, then scaled back its ambitions and started to think about profitability. Today, the company is announcing that it’s secured a €100 million revolving credit facility ($108M at today’s exchange rate). This will give it a new war chest to plan for the future and keep driving for growth — including through acquisitions. “Debt is a tool that’s relatively attractive, non-dilutive, and super flexible too,” Brusson told us. The €100M credit line is with several big banks based in France, the U.K. and the U.S. BlaBlaCar isn’t paying any interest for now as it has not tapped its debt line yet. But Brusson said …

Atlantic tops 1 million subscriptions and profitability

Atlantic tops 1 million subscriptions and profitability

Published by skeptic

March 28, 2024, 11:01 AM ET The Atlantic now has more than 1 million subscriptions and is profitable, surpassing two goals that the company set several years ago. In an email to The Atlantic’s staff, quoted in part below, Editor in Chief Jeffrey Goldberg and CEO Nicholas Thompson announce this news. Overall revenue is up more than 10 percent year over year; advertising booked year-to-date is also up 33 percent year over year. Subscriptions to The Atlantic have increased by double-digit percentages in each of the past four years––and surged 14 percent in the past year. The Atlantic has more than doubled the total number of paid subscriptions since it launched digital and a digital + print bundle four years ago. The magazine has earned Pulitzer Prizes in each of the past three years for stories that exemplify depth and range––an exhaustive investigation into immigration and family separation; a moving portrait of one family’s heartbreaking loss in the 9/11 attacks and their struggle to move on; and defining coverage of the pandemic and how America …

Tutoring platform GoStudent reaches profitability amid tradeoffs

Tutoring platform GoStudent reaches profitability amid tradeoffs

Published by skeptic

Vienna may have a wealth of museums, public transportation, spring water and social housing, but tutoring platform GoStudent is another of its crown jewels. Its services are now used by more than 11 million families, many of whom live outside of GoStudent’s home country. Alongside Bitpanda and Runtastic, acquired by Adidas, eight-year-old GoStudent is one of the very few Austrian startups that made a name for itself in the international tech scene. But having had to sharply adapt to a market that no longer favor growth at all costs, its €3 billion valuation and global expansion may well belong to the past, at least for now. However, GoStudent reshaped quickly to fit the taste of the moment. When I visited its HQs a few days ago to get to know with its high-profile founders, CEO Felix Ohswald and COO Gregor Müller, they revealed that the company has reached full profitability. “And not just EBITDA profitable,” Ohswald, the son of a banker, was quick to add. The company later confirmed in writing that “this means that …

DraftKings confirms exec changes to deliver ‘significant profitability’

DraftKings confirms exec changes to deliver ‘significant profitability’

Published by skeptic

DraftKings has confirmed executive changes at the company with Jason Park taking up the newly created position of Chief Transformation Officer to lead strategic initiatives for additional growth, including a targeted acquisition of Jackpocket. Park’s existing role as Chief Financial Officer will be filled by Alan Ellingson, who is elevated from his current position as Senior Vice President of Finance and Analytics.  The changes will take place as of 1 May 2024, with the rationale explained by Jason Robins, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of DraftKings. “I have asked Jason Park to take on a new role at DraftKings to address and capture large efficiency opportunities that I expect will generate significant incremental profitability over the coming years,” he said. “Jason’s unique skill set, based on his accomplishments over the last five years as our Chief Financial Officer and 11 years as a private equity Operating Partner, will allow us to further improve how we operate. In addition, I’m confident he will unlock the benefits of our proposed acquisition of Jackpocket following its closing to …

Everton and Nottingham Forest charged over breaches of Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules | UK News

Everton and Nottingham Forest charged over breaches of Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules | UK News

Published by skeptic

Everton Football Club and Nottingham Forest have been charged with breaches under the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules. It comes in addition to Everton being deducted 10 points in November – the largest sanction in the history of the Premier League. The club is appealing against their punishment. If the breaches are proven, Everton and Nottingham Forest face the threat of points deductions. The clubs have 14 days to submit their formal answers to the complaint. In a statement, Nottingham Forest said it “acknowledges the statement from the Premier League confirming that the club has today been charged with a breach of the league’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules”. “The club intends to continue to cooperate fully with the Premier League on this matter and are confident of a speedy and fair resolution,” they added. Everton said the breach relates to a period which covers seasons 2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23. “It therefore includes financial periods (2019/20, 2020/21 and 2021/22) for which the club has already received a 10-point sanction. The club is currently appealing …

May Mobility’s driverless microtransit might beat robotaxis to profitability

May Mobility’s driverless microtransit might beat robotaxis to profitability

Published by skeptic

Autonomous vehicle company May Mobility has launched its first driverless on-demand microtransit service on public roads in Sun City, Arizona in partnership with transit tech company Via. The milestone is in line with May Mobility’s goal of launching rider-only operations by 2023. It also signals that the gentle onramp approach to commercializing autonomy could be working for the startup. Sun City is a planned community for “active, retired adults.” Launching a driverless microtransit service in such an environment isn’t as flashy as putting robotaxis on the streets of San Francisco or doing autonomous pickups and dropoffs at airport in Phoenix. But it has allowed the company to expand steadily and avoid getting into trouble. May’s strategy of integrating its autonomous microtransit service into existing public transit, in partnership with cities, has also laid the groundwork for future, more challenging deployments. Carlos Cruz-Casas, chief innovation officer at Miami-Dade County’s Department of Public Works, told TechCrunch that May Mobility will be launching an on-demand shuttle service in Miami, also in partnership with Via. Neither May Mobility nor Via …