I Was Wrong: AT&T Is Struggling Just to Give HBO Max Away
Roughly a month before the May launch of HBO Max, I cautioned AT&T (NYSE: T) investors to keep their expectations for the new streaming service in check. My chief concern was its price. At $14.99 per month, HBO Max would have the highest monthly starting price of any streaming video on demand (SVOD) platform. Moreover, a huge swath of existing AT&T customers would be getting it free, therefore not adding any incremental revenue.
I was wrong. I wasn't wrong about the price being a challenge, to be clear. My error was in misjudging the depth of the difficulty in selling HBO Max, or even giving it away. As of the end of September, only 8.6 million consumers had activated HBO Max even though more than 38 million people may be eligible to enjoy it at no cost. Only 3.6 million of those activations were "retail" purchases from consumers outside of AT&T's customer ecosystem or AT&T customers not eligible for free HBO Max.
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Source Fool.com
