Quarterly report: Netflix loses almost a million users

The streaming service had actually expected significantly worse numbers. Also: 1: 0 for Twitter in the legal dispute against Elon Musk and VW starts again in the USA with fully electric pick-ups.

Good morning! While you slept, work continued elsewhere in the digital scene.

The top topics:

Netflix lost two consecutive quarters of subscribers for the first time in the streaming service’s history. In the past three months to the end of June, 970,000 users dropped out. Although this was bad news, the US group, which has a total of over 220 million subscribers, had actually expected an even higher loss of around two million. Netflix is ​​now hoping to add a million new subscribers in the current quarter.

The group also announced that it plans to introduce a lower-cost, ad-supported version in early 2023. This follows news that Netflix has partnered with Microsoft for this ad-supported offering. Overall, the streaming service posted $7.97 billion in revenue last quarter. Analysts had expected just over eight billion. [Mehr bei CNBC und Wall Street Journal]

on Founder Scene: Imagine slipping into the body of the opposite sex. The idea: A change of consciousness. Especially when it comes to issues like discrimination. The startup Wondder has developed VR glasses that offer such scenarios as training for specialists. Our editor Georg Räth has written down for you what exactly is behind it and how it works. [Mehr bei Gründerszene+]

And here are the other headlines of the night:

Twitter won its first small victory in the lawsuit against Elon Musk on Tuesday. A judge in the US state of Delaware granted the company’s request to speed up its lawsuit in which the short message service wants to force the Tesla boss to close his $44 billion purchase after all. The hearing has now been set for October after the court upheld Twitter’s contention that the current uncertainty could harm the public company over the long term. Musk’s lawyers actually wanted to delay the trial until February. [Mehr bei Wall Street Journal]

Volkswagen (VW) wants to revive the Scout brand in the USA and win back the hearts of Americans with new sporty electric pickups and SUVs. This is what the new head of Scout, Scott Keogh (previously President and CEO of Volkswagen Group of America), said in an exclusive interview with the US medium “Axios”. Despite its global position, the world’s second largest automaker has been underrepresented in the United States. The scandal surrounding the diesel emission standards had also done great damage to the reputation of the Germans. [Mehr bei Axios]

Investment: Google and Chevron are part of a $250 million financing announced Tuesday for TAE Technologies. The California-based nuclear fusion startup, which has now raised around $1.2 billion, aims to create emission-free energy without harmful radioactive waste like nuclear fission does. Japanese investment company Sumitomo Corporation of Americas also participated in the round and wants to help TAE bring its fusion technology to the Asia-Pacific region. TAE, led by Austrian-American physicist and entrepreneur Michl Binderbauer, was founded in 1998. The company’s goal is to have a commercial-scale fusion reactor supplying power to the grid by the early 2030s. [Mehr bei CNBC]

Amazon sued the administrators of around 10,000 Facebook-Groups for allegedly fake product reviews. The e-commerce retailer had previously taken action against manipulated reviews on its own platform. At the same time, Amazon is facing headwinds from Google: The tech group is building Youtube is increasingly turning to the shopping channel and is thus positioning itself as an Amazon rival. This is how Google builds the partnership with the software provider Shopify off – a click on a product video on YouTube will allow users to buy products directly in the future. [Mehr bei Wall Street Journal, Spiegel und Handelsblatt]

More tech news: Samsung introduces its latest foldables on August 10th and Apple has agreed to pay $50 million to settle a lawsuit relating to faulty keyboards on its computers. Google and Oracle on the other hand, are struggling with the unexpected heat wave in Great Britain. Faulty cooling systems in the companies’ London data centers led to a temporary loss of services. [Mehr bei The Information, Reuters und Techcrunch]

Our reading tip on Gründerszene: E-commerce business models are under pressure because of the economic crisis. Now the Berlin shop buyer has SellerX reduced its staff. Dozens of employees have to go. [Mehr bei Gründerszene]

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Happy Wednesday!

Your Gründerszene editors