Posts Tagged ‘Avid’

Avid Posts First GAAP Net Profit Since 2007 in Q4 2011, Driving Shares Up 20 Percent

Broadcast technology vendor financials, Quarterly Results | Posted by Joe Zaller
Feb 08 2012

Avid reported that its revenue for the fourth quarter of 2011 was $185.3m, down 5% versus the same period a year ago, and up 12% compared to the previous quarter.

Significantly, the company generated $14.4m in cash from operations during the quarter, and posted GAAP net income of $1.2m, Avid’s first positive GAAP net income since 2007.  On a non-GAAP basis Avid posted a profit of $14.6m, or 38 cents a share, versus non-GAAP net income of $14.2m last year.

The results exceeded the consensus estimates of analysts who were looking for revenues of $176.34m, and non-GAAP earnings of 16 cents per share.  The strong performance pleased investors who drove the company’s stock up more than 20% on the news.

The results were helped by a variety of factors including the impact of a previously announced restricting program, increased spending for the 2012 Olympics, and ongoing success with converting Apple Final Cut Pro (FCP) users to Avid’s Media Composer platform.  The company said that it had converted approximately 6,000 FCP users to Avid since Apple launched the FCP-X system in June of 2011.

On a geographic basis, the company said it experienced year-over-year growth in Europe during the quarter, but that sales in the Americas and Asia-Pac region declined versus last year.

Gross margins in the quarter were 54.1%, the highest since 2005, thanks to a favorable product mix, operational efficiencies and increased support revenues on modest spending growth.

Operating expenses for the quarter were $101.3m, down 7% versus last year.

Non-GAAP operating expenses were $88m, a $3.9m decrease year on year primarily related to the reduction in workforce announced in October of 2011 and lower variable compensation due to lower bonus payments.  This is the lowest non-GAAP operating expense figure that Avid has posted since the fourth quarter of 2004.

Avid says it will continue to ensure than spending is lower than revenue growth, and pointed out that it has reduced headcount by 600 people over the last four years, while increasing less expensive off-shore contractors.

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Highlights for the fourth quarter:

  • Video revenue in the quarter was $116.2m, down 1% versus the same period a year ago, and up 18% versus the previous quarter.  Video revenue accounted for 63% of the total revenue during the quarter, versus 60% last quarter.  The company said that professional editing had strong unit sales and that there was a year-on-year increase in Media Composer software revenue.  Shared storage and workflow systems were also strong in the quarter. However video revenue was down slightly overall because of lower hardware sales.

 

  • Audio revenue in the quarter was $69.1m, down 11% versus the same period a year ago, and up 4% versus the previous quarter. Revenue from Pro Tools declined on a year-over-year basis due to a very strong Q4 performance last year, when the first open version of the product was released.  Control surfaces and Pro Tools HD also experienced growth, but audio revenue declined in the “creative enthusiast” market, due mainly to weak demand in consumer markets as well as discontinued products.

 

  • Revenue from products was $148m, a decrease of 9% versus the same period a  year ago, and up 12% versus the previous quarter.  Product revenue accounted for 80% of the total revenue during the quarter, the same as last quarter.

 

  • Service revenue in the quarter (including maintenance support, professional services revenue, and training) was $37.3m, an increase of 15% versus last year.  The company said this was a record result for service revenue.

 

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Full year results:

Revenue for the full year 2011 was $677.9m, flat with 2010, and above previously issued guidance of $665m-$675m.

The GAAP net loss for the year was $23.8m, an improvement on the GAAP net loss of $37m in 2010. On a non-GAAP basis, the company’s net income for 2011 was $10.2m, versus non-GAAP income of $9.2m in 2010.

Gross margins for the year were 53% versus 52% in 2010, the highest they have been since 2005. Operating expenses for the full year were $386.9m, 2% lower than in 2010.

 

Guidance for 2012

Avid CFO Ken Sexton said he expects the company’s 2012 revenue to grow in the “low single digits” driven by growth from media enterprise customers.  The company says it is could achieve a non-GAAP operating profit of 5% for the year even if revenue is flat, and that it “could report a GAAP net income for 2012.”

 

Avid CEO Gary Greenfield issued an upbeat statement saying ““Our results for the fourth quarter were encouraging and reflect our continued efforts to streamline our operations and improve execution across the business.  For the quarter, we reported positive GAAP net income for the first time since 2007, positive cash flow from operations and the highest gross margin as a percent of revenue since 2005. In addition, we have implemented the restructuring we announced in October and expect to see additional benefit from these actions in 2012. We continue to identify and implement changes across the Company to help improve our operational performance and remain sharply focused on improving profitability while driving revenue growth.”

 

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Related Content:

Press Release: Avid Announces Results for Fourth Quarter 2011

Replay of Avid Earning Conference Call with Equity Analysts

Previous Quarter: Avid Posts $8 Million Net Loss for Q3 2011, Announces 10 Percent Workforce Reduction

Previous Year: Avid Announces Full Year Results, Nears Q4 Break Even as Revenue Increases 12 Percent

Avid To Cut Workforce by 10%, Close Facility, Take Q4 Charge of $10m-11m

Avid One of Five Companies Google Should Buy in 2012 – Forbes

Avid Brings Its “Pro-sumer” Video Editing App to iPad

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Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 5 – The 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research, Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, market research, technology trends, Top Broadcast Vendor Brands | Posted by Joe Zaller
Nov 01 2011

This is the eighth in a series of articles about some of the findings from the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands.  More than 8,000 people in 100+ countries took part in the 2011 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever done in the broadcast industry.

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Each year, as part of the Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), we ask broadcast professionals worldwide to rank a variety of technology vendor brands on a wide range of metrics.  We use this information to create a series of reports, which through benchmarking and industry “league tables” enable each vendor to understand its position in the market relative to the the industry as a whole as well as their company’s direct competitors.

In previous articles we wrote about the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table, the 2011 BBS Net Change in Overall Opinion League Table, the 2011 BBS Brand Opinion Leaders League Table, and 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Innovation League Table.

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This post follows on from the 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Innovation League Table, by focusing on one of the most important metrics for any technology company – quality.

In an industry that prides itself on the fidelity of its sound and images, the perception of quality is a very important metric for broadcast technology vendors.  Many vendors use quality as one of the key components of their market positioning, and customers often use technical performance and quality as a part of their procurement strategies.

To determine the market’s perception of the quality of broadcast technology vendors, respondents were asked to rank broadcast technology vendor brands for “Quality” on a scale of 1-10 – with 10 being best in the market, and 1 being worst in the market.

The top 30 ranked brands for overall opinion are shown below for the global sample of all respondents.

In all cases, these results are shown in alphabetical order, NOT in the order in which they were ranked in the study.

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The 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table

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As with previously published rankings, this list contains a broad mix of vendors including large and small firms; single product and multi-product firms; global and regional players; and audio and video technology providers.

In order to better understand what drives the perception of quality in the broadcast technology industry, let’s look deeper at the vendors on this list, beginning with the type of products produced by each vendor.

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Frequency of Product Category – Audio Takes 4 of Top 7 Spots

What about the product categories themselves?  Are some product categories inherently perceived as having higher quality?  If so are these products judged differently than other types of products by customers who are evaluating them for purchase?

As shown in the chart below, there is a very broad range of product categories included in the 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table – vendors that make products in 23 of the 26 product categories that were covered in the study.

However, when one looks at the frequency of the product categories produced by these vendors, it’s immediately apparent that the top categories are audio products.

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2011 BBS Quality League Table — Frequency of Product Categories:

 

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The top two products categories for quality are both from the audio side of the business – microphones and audio consoles.  In fact, four of the top seven product categories in this ranking are audio related, with only highly complex video products — video editing, camera lenses and ENG cameras — being included in this group.  This is an interesting data point, especially when one considers that out of 26 product categories covered in the 2011 BBS, only five were in the audio space.

The other product categories that appear multiple times are clustered in the live production and studio environments, and include camera lenses, studio cameras, production switchers, production servers, test and measurement and video transport.  Interestingly these products tend to be high ticket items that are produced by the industry’s larger vendors.

Since the industry’s largest vendors tend to operate in the most product categories, let’s evaluate the number of times each vendor appears in the 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table to see if there is a correlation between size of vendor / product range and the market’s perception of quality.

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2011 BBS Quality League Table — Number of 2011 BBS Product Categories per Brand:

When considering what drives the perception of quality, one question to consider is which type of vendor appears more often in the above ranking – those that are focused on a single type of product, or large multi-product vendors.

While our research does not evaluate each product produced by every vendor, we do put vendors into categories based on their product lines.  This gives a good representation of whether a particular vendor has a narrow or broad product-line-up.

The table below shows the number of 2011 BBS product categories produced by each brand (as defined by the segmentation used in the 2011 BBS).

 

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As shown above, the vast majority of the companies in the 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table provide products in just one of the product categories we measured as part of the study.

Please note that this is not a measure of company size, but rather a measure of how many product categories each of the above vendors was included in for the 2011 BBS. For example some of the “single product category companies” on the above list — such as Adobe, Dolby and Shure – are quite large.

Yet with 21 out of 30 vendors on this list producing a product in only one 2011 BBS category (out of 26 measured) it appears that that focused, specialized companies are regarded as quality leaders in the eyes of the market.  Nevertheless it’s also worth pointing out that large companies can also be considered industry innovators. For example, in the 2011 BBS study, Avid is covered in seven product categories, Snell is covered in five product categories, Sony is covered in four product categories and EVS appears three times.

To further illustrate this point, the chart below shows the number of 2011 BBS product categories per vendor in the 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table.

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Number of products per vendor – Single Product Companies Dominate Quality Rankings

A breakdown of how many product categories are produced by each vendor in the 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table is shown below:

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With more than two-thirds of the vendors in the 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Quality League Table producing a product in just one 2011 BBS product category, this table clearly suggests that focused companies who apply their efforts to specialist product areas are often able to generate a higher perception of quality in the eyes of the market.

Of course, companies are listed here based on how many 2011 BBS product categories they produce, which is not an absolute measure of the products produced be each vendor. There are some very large companies on the list above who appear in just one 2011 BBS category. In total, the 2011 BBS looked at 118 vendors in 26 separate product categories (based on the IABM’s industry model), but even so, it did not necessarily cover the entire product range of all vendors.

Please keep in mind when reviewing this information that all data in these charts is presented in alphabetical order, not in the order brands were ranked by respondents to the 2011 BBS.  Also, the charts in this posting measure the responses of all non-vendor participants in the 2011 BBS respondents, regardless of their company type, company size, geographic location, job title and budget for broadcast technology products.  Finally please note that this study evaluated a total of 118 brands.

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In order to get full value from this data, it is necessary to evaluate these results on a granular basis.  If you would like more information, please contact Devoncroft Partners.

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This article is based on the findings from the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of industry trends, technology purchasing behavior and the opinion of vendor brands.  With more than 8,000 people in 100+ countries participating, the 2011 BBS is the largest and most comprehensive market study ever done in the broadcast industry.

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Devoncroft Partners has published a variety of reports from 2011 BBS data.  For more information, please get in touch.

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Related Content:

Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 4 – the 2011 BBS Broadcast Technology Vendor Innovation League Table

Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 3 – the 2011 BBS Brand Opinion Leaders League Table

Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 2 – the 2011 BBS Net Change in Overall Brand Opinion League Table

Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 1 – the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table

Where is Money Being Spent in the Broadcast Industry in 2011? The 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Project Index

Tracking Changes in Broadcast Industry Trends — 2011 Versus 2010 Broadcast Industry’s Most Comprehensive Market Study Reveals Top Trends of 2011

More Information About the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey from Devoncroft Partners

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Avid Posts $8 Million Net Loss for Q3 2011, Announces 10 Percent Workforce Reduction

Broadcast technology vendor financials | Posted by Joe Zaller
Oct 28 2011

Avid announced that its revenue for the first quarter of 2011 was $165m, flat versus the same period a year ago, and up 2% compared to the previous quarter. The revenue number came in slightly below the $165.3m that was expected by equity analysts.

The company posted a GAAP net loss of $8m for the quarter versus a GAAP net loss of $10m during the same period a year ago, and a GAAP net loss of $12.9m last quarter.

On a non-GAAP basis, the company posted a net profit of $385,000 for the quarter, compared to a non-GAAP net income of $1.6m last year
and a non-GAAP net loss of $3.9m last quarter.

As with the previous quarter, the company attributed its performance to softness in the European market, saying that the macro-economic situation in the region remains very fragile.  Avid chairman and CEO Gary Greenfield said that European broadcast customers clearly want to make changes, and the company is making strong progress in the region.  However these customers are still holding back from placing orders.  Nevertheless, despite the lower year-over-year revenue from EMEA, orders in region actually increased during the quarter.

Commenting on other regions, Greenfield said Avid had a strong quarter in the Americas and Asia-Pac regions.  The company also reported an increase in services revenue.

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Company restructuring announced – including 10% staff reduction

On the company’s earnings conference call with equity analyst, Greenfield outlined restructuring actions that the company says it is taking to re-align its cost structure and to accelerate its objective of expanding the company’s operating margins.

These actions were also announced as part of a form 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

As part of this restructuring, Avid is planning to reduce its headcount by approximately 10%, with the majority of the reduction expected immediately.  The company said will also close a facility in Irwindale, CA.

At the end of the third quarter, Avid had 1944 employees and 505 contractors, so the planned layoffs will impact approximately 200 staff.

“We believe that Avid should be able to achieve non-GAAP operating margins in the mid teens,” said Greenfield.  “While this profit level will require revenue growth, we continue to take actions to streamline and improve our operations while increasing our investments in areas of the business with higher growth potential.”

“These actions allow us to continue to invest in our core business as well as shift some resources to areas of the business that we believe offer better revenue growth for the company.”

Greenfield says the anticipated cost of this restructuring is approximately $10m-$11m, and will result in an annualized cost savings of approximately $25m-$30m.

On the company’s earnings call, Greenfield said the cuts were made across the board, with the exception of sales and marketing where the company continues to invest.

This is the second set of major layoffs at Avid in the past year. In December of 2010, Avid announced that it planned to restructure its operations during the first half of 2011 by eliminating positions “in lower growth geographies and markets,” while reinvesting in “more strategic areas with greater opportunity for growth.”

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Highlights for the third quarter:

  • Video revenue in the quarter was $98.4m, a decrease of2% versus the same period a year ago, and an increase of 2% versus the previous quarter.  Video revenue accounted for 60% of the total revenue during the quarter, versus 60% last quarter.

 

  • Audio revenue in the quarter was $66.5, up 3% versus the same period a year ago, and up 2% versus the previous quarter.

 

  • Revenue from products was $131.9m, a decrease of 2% versus the same period a year ago, and up 2% versus the previous quarter.  Product revenue accounted for 80% of the total revenue during the quarter, the same as last quarter.

 

  • Service revenue in the quarter was $33.1m, an increase of 7% versus last year, and an increase of 3% versus the previous quarter.

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Year-to-date performance:

For the first nine months of 2011, Avid’s revenue was $492.6m, an increase of 2% versus the same period in 2010.  The GAAP net loss for
the first nine months of 2011 was $20.6m, compared to a GAAP net loss of $31.4m for the same period in 2010.  On a non-GAAP basis, the company’s net loss for the first nine months of 2011 was $4.4m, compared to a non-GAAP net loss of $5m for the first half of 2010.

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Full year guidance lowered

Due to what Avid CFO Ken Sexton called a challenging macro environment remains the company lowered its financial guidance.  Sexton said the company is expecting full year revenue to be in the range of $665m-$675m with a non-GAAP operating profit margin of 1.5% – 3% of revenue.  Sexton also said that the company expects to achieve a year-on-year improvement in non-GAAP gross margins.

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“The third quarter results showed sequential improvement in revenue and profit,” said Greenfield. “We continue our sharp focus on providing our customers with the products and solutions that help them succeed. In addition, we have taken actions which should accelerate improvement in our financial performance.”

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Related Content:

Press Release: Avid Announces Results for Third Quarter 2011

Avid 8K Filing Detailing Plans for Restructuring

Previous Qtr: Avid Announces Disappointing Q2 2011 Results

Previous Avid Layoffs Avid to Cut Jobs, Close Some Facilities During First Half of 2011

Previous Year: Avid Losses Narrow as Company Posts “Strongest Financial Quarter Since 2007”

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Avid To Cut Workforce by 10%, Close Facility, Take Q4 Charge of $10m-11m

Broadcast technology vendor financials | Posted by Joe Zaller
Oct 27 2011

Avid announced today that it has undertaken restructuring activities that include company-wide staff reductions of approximately 10%.  The company anticipates that it will complete the restructuring during the first half of 2012. Avid says it will also close a facility in Irwindale, CA

As part of this action, Avid will take a charge of approximately $10-11m for the layoffs, most of which will be realized in the quarter ending December 31, 2011.

On a conference call with equity analysts, Avid CEO Gary Greenfield said the cuts were made across the board, with the exception of  sales and marketing where the company continues to invest.

This is the second set of major layoffs at Avid in the past year.  In December of 2010, Avid announced that it planned to restructure its operations during the first half of 2011 by eliminating positions “in lower growth geographies and markets,” while reinvesting in “more strategic areas with greater opportunity for growth.”

 

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Related Content:

 Avid to Cut Jobs, Close Some Facilities During First Half of 2011

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IBC 2011 Trends: Cloud, Channel-in-a-Box, 3D

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Sep 30 2011

Note: This article was originally published last week by TVNewsCheck

Technology vendors at IBC answered the broadcasters’ call for efficiency in a variety of ways, including “cloud” oriented product offerings, highly integrated IT-based systems for broadcast playout, and the introduction of new versions of existing systems that are smaller and less featured, but more affordable to broadcasters with limited budgets.

Also on display at the annual tech show, which wrapped up a six-day run in Amsterdam last week and drew more than 50,000 professionals, were technologies aimed at making 3D production more affordable and compatible with standard 2D operations.

Many vendors were touting the advantages of deploying some type of cloud-based or service-oriented architecture (SOA) applications such as capturing, producing, processing and distributing video and audio as digital files.

Cloud services are drawing attention because broadcasters are being challenged to support an ever-increasing number of distribution platforms. The breadth and rapidly changing nature of the multi-screen environment makes it difficult for even large broadcasters to deploy the appropriate hardware and software solutions in an affordable and timely manner. Thus, broadcasters are now increasingly willing to contemplate outsourcing some of these functions to cloud-based technologies and services.

Many vendors at IBC demonstrated technologies to address some of the fundamental concerns that broadcasters have about cloud-based architectures, notably content security, access to content, collaboration, bandwidth and workflow continuity.

Avid, Chyron, Grass Valley, Panasonic, Sony, Quantel and Vizrt showed their own methods for deploying “media-friendly” SOAs that provide a common interface and pre-authorized access to a wide variety of production tools from every staff member’s desktop.

In addition, the Advanced Media Workflow Association, the European Broadcasting Union and SMPTE came together to develop a standard for configuring an SOA that would allow each manufacturer’s equipment to talk to each other. The effort stems from the vendors’ realization that — due to R&D cost efficiencies — their next-generation products will be predominantly software based and operate best in this type of networked environment.

SOAs also help broadcasters produce and distribute content much more efficiently and allow staff to collaborate even though they may be in separate locations.

Many of these IT-centric concepts are not new ideas, but are now becoming attractive to the video production and broadcasting communities, looking to do more with the same resources. Industry connectivity to Internet protocol (IP) infrastructures has matured and newer consumer-industry file transfer technologies — like IP, HDMI and Apple/Intel’s Thunderbolt — offer benefits for broadcasters that were not apparent before.

Another significant hub of IT-oriented activity at the IBC was in the area of IT-based playout or, as it is more commonly known, channel in a box. These systems offer the promise of dramatically reducing the cost of broadcast playout by enabling users to migrate to off-the-shelf IT hardware running software that integrates, automates and replaces much of the traditional broadcast master control infrastructure.

Technology in this area had matured significantly over the past 6-12 months, and is now are under serious consideration by a number of large and small broadcasters around the world. Miranda Technologies, which became the de facto leader in this emerging field when it acquired the OmniBus Systems’ iTX platform last year, showed the latest advances in its IT-based playout offerings.

Other notable players in this space include traditional broadcast suppliers such as Snell and Evertz, as well as smaller specialized players like Playbox and VSN. Significantly, other large technology vendors are rumored to be readying competing systems that will be introduced in time for the annual NAB Show in April 2012.

In addition to the increasing drive for increased efficiencies, many IBC attendees were gearing up for the high-profile sporting and political events of 2012. In some cases, that means 3D. While the technology has yet to even be considered by local broadcasters in the U.S., a variety of live sports production companies across Europe are already producing events like soccer and rugby in 3D or are anticipating that they will by the time of the Olympics in London.

The games will be the first in 3D, with many events, including the opening and closing ceremonies, produced in the format. Panasonic will be supplying large quantities of 3D cameras and other gear.

Avatar director and 3D pioneer James Cameron put in appearances at several places at the IBC, promoting his new company, The Cameron/Pace Group, and urging industry professionals to pursue and help develop new tools for producing 2D and 3D content simultaneously.

According to Cameron, it’s the only way to stimulate the market to develop much-need original 3D content, and, in turn, spur 3D TV set sales. Previously, the cost of producing 3D has been prohibitive for everyone but a fortunate few who are being sponsored by TV set manufacturers.

“We’re on a relentless path to grow the 3D business,” said Cameron, at the Grass Valley IBC press conference. “We’ve been in the 3D game for 12 years now. We are so excited about what’s happening right now [with 3D] but it’s a little bit daunting staying ahead of the rapid rate of technology change, so we have to have powerful alliances with people that are major players in broadcast who will be able to fulfill this future and supply the kind of quality 3D that people enjoy.”

At the same press conference, Cameron’s partner (and equally influential 3D pioneer) Vince Pace said, “It’s so critical to the industry that we integrate the solutions and come up with a very clean and determined business plan that makes sense to the industry to increase the amount of 3D productions. So, this business of saying we have fewer cameras or we don’t tell the whole story is going to go away.”

IBC attendance was up slightly this year (4%, according to the IBC, to 50,462), again signaling that broadcasters are spending money — on hardware and T&E. Unlike last year, there were several representatives of all the major U.S. TV networks.

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Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 3 – the 2011 BBS Brand Opinion Leaders League Table

broadcast technology market research | Posted by Joe Zaller
Aug 16 2011

This is the sixth in a series of articles about some of the findings from the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands.  More than 8,000 people in 100+ countries took part in the 2011 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever done in the broadcast industry.

 

Each year, as part of the Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), we ask broadcast professionals worldwide to rank a variety of technology vendor brands on a wide range of metrics.  We use this information to create a series of reports, which through benchmarking and industry “league tables” enable each vendors to understand its position in the market relative to their the industry as a whole as well as their direct competitors.

In previous articles we wrote about the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table, and the 2011 BBS Net Change in Overall Opinion League Table, which shows how our global sample of broadcast professionals ranked 118 broadcast vendor brands in terms of their overall opinion of these vendors, and also how their opinions have changed over time.

It’s obviously great news for the vendors who are listed in these rankings, and there were quite a few of them.  A total of 43 brands were listed in the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table; and a total of 51 brands were listed in the 2011 BBS Net Change of Brand Opinion League Table.

This post looks at the companies that were listed in both the Overall Opinion and Net Change in Overall Opinion Rankings. In other words, these are the companies whose brands are held in high regard today, and who are perceived to be getting better over time.

Just 30 brands (out of 118) were listed in both sets of rankings, either globally or regionally.

These are shown below.

Please note that these results are shown in alphabetical order, NOT in the order in which they were ranked in the study. 

 

2011 BBS Brand Opinion Leaders League Table:

 

There are a wide variety of companies on this list, including large and small firms; single product and multi-product firms; global and regional players; and audio and video technology providers.

What they have in common is strong brand recognition, and a dynamism that 2011 BBS respondents feel is making them even stronger.

Let’s look specifically at the how these companies and their products were ranked in the 2011 BBS, beginning with products and technology.

As shown in the chart below, these companies make products in 24 of the 26 product categories that we covered in the 2011 BBS.

The top products for brand leaders are split between audio and video – microphones and video editing.

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2011 BBS Brand Opinion Leaders League Table — Frequency of Product Categories:

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So is it possible that brand leadership can be predicted by the type of product that an organization produces? Interestingly this list is split fairly evenly between audio and video companies.  There’s also a healthy mix of hardware versus software.

What about the number of products that a vendor offers. Larger companies offer more products and are consequently used in more places than their smaller counterparts.  Let’s look at the number of product categories that each of these brands produces (as defined by the segmentation used in the 2011 BBS).

The table below shows the number of 2011 BBS product categories produced by each brand.

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2011 BBS Brand Opinion Leaders League Table — Number of 2011 BBS Product Categories per Brand:

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While there are several brands on this list that appear in many product categories, the vast majority produce only one or two types of products.  Indeed out of the thirty brands in this table, nearly 2/3 appear only once.

Keep in mind that companies who produce only one type of product are not necessarily small.  There are some very large companies on the list above who appear in just one 2011 BBS category.

It turns out that to fully understand what drives brand opinion and brand leadership, one needs to look at the factors that drive and influence these perceptions.  This includes the company’s reputation for things like innovation, reliability, quality, value and great customer service.

We’ll be looking at each of these factors in future articles, so stay tuned.

Please keep in mind when reviewing this information that all data these charts are presented in alphabetical order, not in the order brands were ranked by respondents to the 2011 BBS.  Also, the charts in this posting measure the responses of all non-vendor participants in the 2011 BBS respondents, regardless of their company type, company size, geographic location, job title and budget for broadcast technology products.  Finally please note that this study evaluated a total of 118 brands.

 

In order to get full value from this data, it is necessary to evaluate these results on a granular basis.  If you would like more information, please contact Devoncroft Partners.

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This article is based on the findings from the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of industry trends, technology purchasing behavior and the opinion of vendor brands.  With more than 8,000 people in 100+ countries participating, the 2011 BBS is the largest and most comprehensive market study ever done in the broadcast industry.

 

Devoncroft Partners has published a variety of reports from 2011 BBS data.  For more information, please get in touch.

 

Related Content:

Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 2 – the 2011 BBS Net Change in Overall Brand Opinion League Table

Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 1 – the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table

Where is Money Being Spent in the Broadcast Industry in 2011? The 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Project Index

Tracking Changes in Broadcast Industry Trends — 2011 Versus 2010

Broadcast Industry’s Most Comprehensive Market Study Reveals Top Trends of 2011

More Information About the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey from Devoncroft Partners

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Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 2 – the 2011 BBS Net Change in Overall Brand Opinion League Table

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast industry trends, broadcast technology market research, Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, market research, Top Broadcast Vendor Brands | Posted by Joe Zaller
Aug 04 2011

This is the fifth in a series of articles about some of the findings from the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands.  More than 8,000 people in 100+ countries took part in the 2011 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever done in the broadcast industry.

 

Each year, as part of the Big  Broadcast Survey (BBS), we ask broadcast professionals worldwide to rank a variety of technology vendor brands on a wide range of metrics.  We use this information to create a series of reports, which through benchmarking and industry league tables” enable each vendors to understand its position in the market relative to their the industry as a whole as well as their direct competitors.

In a previous article we wrote about the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table, which shows how our global sample of broadcast professionals ranked 118 broadcast vendor brands in terms of their overall opinion of these vendors.

While it’s great for a vendor to be named to the top 30 for overall opinion, these rankings may be seen as somewhat one-sided because they rely primarily on the positive opinions of respondents. In order to get a better understanding of how broadcast technology vendor brands are perceived, it is necessary to look at both the positive and negative opinions of brands, and to take into account how these opinions have changed over time.

To achieve this, we first determine whether a respondent has an opinion of a brand, and then ask them how their opinion of that brand has changed over time – i.e. has it improved, declined or stayed the same.

When compared to the previously published ranking of overall opinions of brands, this methodology provides a more comprehensive picture of how a brand is perceived because it shows both the positive and negative opinions of each brand.

Sometimes these results highlight some interesting perceptions about brands.  Take for example the chart below, which is from our 2009 study.

 

 

 

In this case the brand that was top for “got better” was also top for “got worse.”

Given these results, it is perhaps more useful to find the Net Change in Overall Opinion for each brand, which is calculated by using the following formula:

GB-GW/# of total respondents = Net Change in Brand Image

In other words, the percentage of respondents who said a brand “got worse” is subtracted from the percentage of respondents who said their opinion of a brand had “got better” (ignoring the “stayed the same” number).

This takes into account both the positive and negative perceptions of brands, along with how these opinions have changed over time.  It also presents a more balanced view of which brands are getting better and which are getting worse in the minds of market participants.

Because some brands are polarizing (as seen in the example above), it’s possible that a strong “got better” response might be cancelled ut by a strong “got worse” response.  As a result some companies who were rated in the top 30 on just the “got better” score were not included in the global or regional top 30 because their high “got worse” score dragged down their overall result.  At the same time, a few of the companies with high “got worse” scores still made the top 30 list because these negative scores were cancelled out by even higher “got better” scores.

In order to arrive at the Net Change in Overall Opinion, research participants were asked whether their opinion of various brands had “got better”, “got worse” or “stayed the same” over the past 2-3 years.

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The results of this enquiry are shown below in two ways:

  • An overall industry “league table” that shows the 30 highest ranked vendors for the metric “Net Change of Overall Opinion.”  The data in this chart is broken out globally and regionally.

 

  • An analysis of the “frequency” of appearance in the “Net Change of Overall Opinion” league table.”

 

The top 30 ranked brands for Net Change of Overall Opinion are shown below for both the global sample of all respondents as well as for all respondents in each of the geographic regions.

 

In all cases, these results are shown in alphabetical order, NOT in the order in which they were ranked by respondents to the study.

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2011 BBS Net Chage in Overall Opinion League Table:

 

A total of 51 broadcast technology vendor brands are included in this table, illustrating the geographic variation of opinion.

In terms of frequency of appearance in this table:

 

  • 13 brands appear four times, meaning they were ranked in the top 30 globally and in each geographic region

 

  • 10 brands appear three times

 

  • 9 brands appear two times

 

  • 19 brands appear one time which demonstrates that some brands are strongest in one geographic area

 

 

Analysis of the data shows that are some clear market leaders on a global basis, while others are strong on a regional basis.

A breakdown of how many times each company appears in the ranking shows how many times each brand appears in the chart above.

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Brands appearing four times in the 2011 BBS Net Change of Overall Opinion League Table: 

  • Adobe, Aja Video, Apple, Blackmagic Design, Canon, Cisco, Genelec, Omneon, Panasonic, Riedel, Sennheiser, Sony, Tektronix

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Brands appearing three times in the 2011 BBS Net Change of Overall Opinion League Table: 

  • Ateme,  Evertz, EVS, Harmonic, Net Insight, Rhozet, Rohde & Schwarz, Ross Video, Shure, Vizrt

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Brands appearing two times in the 2011 BBS Net Change of Overall Opinion League Table: 

  • AKG, Digital Rapids, Dolby, Ensemble,  Front Porch Digital, Lawo, Telestream, TVIPS, Wohler

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Brands appearing once in the 2011 BBS Net Change of Overall Opinion League Table: 

  • AmberFin, Audio-Technica ,Avid, Fujinon, Grass Valley, Harris, Inlet Technologies, Linear, Linear Acoustic, Miranda, MSA Focus,
    Nevion, Playbox, PubliTronic, Schoeps, Screen Service, Solid State Logic, Telecast, Yamaha

..

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Frequency Analysis of the Brands in the in the 2011 BBS Net Change of Overall Opinion League Table:  

In order to provide a better understanding of which brands were most highly ranked in each geography, the data has been provided in the
table below, which shows the global and regional performance for each brand in the top 30 ranking of overall opinion.

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Frequency Analysis of Brands in the 2011 BBS Net Change of Overall Opinion League Table

 

 

This frequency analysis chart shows that there are some interesting geographic variations in the data. Here’s a closer look at how brands appeared by geography:

 

Appearing in the top 30 “overall opinion” ranking globally + one region

Eight brands managed to achieve a top 30 ranking in theglobal overall opinion league table, despite being in the top 30 of only one of the three geographic regions.

  • Digital Rapids, Ensemble, EVS, Front Porch Digital, Lawo, Net Insight, Telestream, T-VIPS

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Appearing in the top 30 “overall opinion” ranking in one region

The following 18 brands did not make the top 30 in the global league table of overall opinion, but they did appear in the top 30 overall opinion ranking in one of the geographic regions:

  • AmberFin, Audio-Technica, Avid, Fujinon, Grass Valley, Inlet Technologies, Linear, Linear Acoustic, Miranda, MSA Focus, Nevion, Playbox, PubliTronic, Schoeps, Screen Service, Solid State Logic, Telecast, Yamaha

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Appearing in the top 30 “overall opinion” ranking only in EMEA

  • AmberFin, Fujinon, Inlet Technologies, Linear Acoustic, Nevion, PubliTronic, Screen Service

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Appearing in the top 30 “overall opinion” ranking only in Asia-Pacific

  • Avid, Grass Valey, Harris, Miranda, MSA Focus, Playbox, Schoeps, Yamaha

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Appearing in the top 30 “overall opinion” ranking only in the Americas

  • Audio-Technica, Linear, Solid State Logic, Telecast, Wohler

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Please keep in mind when reviewing this information that all data these charts are presented in alphabetical order, not in the order brands were ranked by respondents to the 2011 BBS.  Also, the charts in this posting measure the responses of all non-vendor participants in the 2011 BBS respondents, regardless of their company type, company size, geographic location, job title and budget for broadcast technology products.  Finally please note that this study evaluated a total of 118 brands.

In order to get full value from this data, it is necessary to evaluate these results on a granular basis.  If you would like more information, please contact Devoncroft Partners.

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This article is based on the findings from the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of industry trends, technology purchasing behavior and the opinion of vendor brands.  With more than 8,000 people in 100+ countries participating, the 2011 BBS is the largest and most comprehensive market study ever done in the broadcast industry.

Devoncroft Partners has published a variety of reports from 2011 BBS data.  For more information, please get in touch.

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Related Content:

Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 1 – the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table

Where is Money Being Spent in the Broadcast Industry in 2011? The 2011 BBS Broadcast Industry Global Project Index

Tracking Changes in Broadcast Industry Trends — 2011 Versus 2010

Broadcast Industry’s Most Comprehensive Market Study Reveals Top Trends of 2011

More Information About the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey from Devoncroft Partners

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© Devoncroft Partners 2009 – 2011. All Rights Reserved.

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Avid Announces Disappointing Q2 Results

broadcast technology market research, Broadcast technology vendor financials, Quarterly Results | Posted by Joe Zaller
Jul 28 2011

Avid announced that its revenue for the first quarter of 2011 was $161.3m, a decrease of 1% versus the same period a year ago, and a decrease of 3% compared to the previous quarter.

The company posted a GAAP net loss of $11.9m for the quarter, versus a GAAP loss of $12.9m during the same period a year ago, and a GAAP net loss of $15.5m last quarter. On a non-GAAP basis, the net loss for the quarter was $3.9m, compared to a non-GAAP net loss of $2m during the same period a year ago.

The weak results, which the company attributed to softness in the European market, were below the $170.4m consensus expectation of equity analysts.  As a result, the stock sold off, dropping nearly 25% the day after the results were issued.

 

Highlights for the second quarter:

  • Video revenue in the quarter was $96.3m, an increase of 3% versus the same period a year ago, and an increase of 2% versus the previous quarter.  Video revenue accounted for 60% of the total revenue during the quarter, versus 57% last quarter.

 

  • Audio revenue in the quarter was $65.1m, down 5% versus the same period a year ago, and down 9% versus the previous quarter.

 

  • Revenue  from products was $129.2m, a decrease of 4% versus the same period a year  ago, and down 6% versus the previous quarter.  Product revenue accounted for 80% of the total revenue during the quarter, versus 82.5% last quarter.

 

  • Service revenue in the quarter was $32.2m, an increase of 15% versus last year, and down 10% versus the previous quarter.

 

For the first six months of 2011, Avid’s revenue was $327.7m, an increase of 3% versus the first six months of 2010.  The GAAP net loss for the first six months of 2011 was $17m, compared to a GAAP net loss of $26.4 million for the same period in 2010.  On a non-GAAP basis, the company’s net loss for the first half of 2011 was $4.8m, compared to a non-GAAP net loss of was $6.6m for the first half of 2010.

 

“While Q2 was difficult, I believe our business is sound,” said Gary Greenfield, chairman and CEO at Avid. “Our customer focus is unwavering and I believe we’ll succeed by continuing to listen to them and responding with innovative, open tools to help video and audio professionals and enthusiasts around the world create great content they can distribute anywhere, anytime.”

 

Related Content:

Press Release: Avid Announces Results for Second Quarter of 2011

Q1 2011 Results: Avid Reports 5th Consecutive Quarter of Year-on-Year Revenue Growth

Press Release: Avid Announces Results for Second Quarter of 2010

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Ranking Broadcast Technology Vendors Part 1 – the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table

broadcast technology market research, Broadcast Vendor Brand Research, market research, Top Broadcast Vendor Brands | Posted by Joe Zaller
Jul 14 2011

This is the fourth in a series of articles about some of the findings from the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of broadcast industry trends, technology purchasing plans, and benchmarking of broadcast technology vendor brands.  More than 8,000 people in 100+ countries took part in the 2011 BBS, making it the largest and most comprehensive market study ever done in the broadcast industry.

 

Each year, as part of the Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), we ask a global sample of  broadcast professionals to rank a variety of technology vendor brands on a wide range of metrics.  We use this information to create a series of reports, which through benchmarking and industry “league tables” enable each vendors to understand its position in the market relative to their the industry as a whole as well as their direct competitors.

This post looks at how our global sample of broadcast professionals ranked 118 different broadcast technology vendors in terms of their overall opinion of these vendors (to see a list of the brands covered in this study, please click here).

Respondents were asked to rank their opinion of broadcast technology vendor brands on a scale of 1-10 — with 10 being best in the market, and 1 being worst in the market.

The top 30 ranked brands for overall opinion are shown below for both the global sample of all respondents as well as for all respondents in each of the geographic regions.

Results are shown in two ways:

  • An overall industry “league table” that shows the 30 highest ranked vendors for the metric “overall opinion.”  The data in this chart is broken out globally and regionally.

 

  • An analysis of the “frequency” of appearance in the “overall opinion league table”

 

The top 30 ranked brands for overall opinion are shown below for both the global sample of all respondents as well as for all respondents in each of the geographic regions.

Please note that in all cases, these results are shown in alphabetical order, NOT in the order in which they were ranked by respondents to the survey.      

 

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2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table

 

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A total of 43 broadcast technology vendor brands are included in this table, illustrating the geographic variation of opinion.

In terms of frequency of appearance in this table:

 

  • 19 brands appear four times, meaning they were ranked in the top 30 globally and in each geographic region

 

  • 9 brands appear three times

 

  • 2 brands appear two times

 

  • 13 brands appear one time which demonstrates that some brands are strongest in one geographic area

 

 

Analysis of the data shows that are some clear market leaders on a global basis, while others are strong on a regional basis.

A breakdown of how many times each company appears in the ranking shows how many times each brand appears in the chart above.

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Brands appearing four times in the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table: 

  • Adobe, AKG, Apple, beyerdynamic, Canon, Cisco, Dolby, Fujinon, Genelec, Grass Valley, Neumann, Panasonic, Schoeps, Sennheiser, Shure, Solid State Logic (SSL), Sony, Tektronix, Yamaha

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Brands appearing three times in the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table: 

  • Aja Video, Avid, Blackmagic Design, Clear-Com, JBL, Rohde & Schwarz, Snell, Studer, Wohler

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Brands appearing two times in the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table:

  • Audio-Technica, RTS Intercom Systems

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Brands appearing once in the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table:

  • Electro Voice, Evertz, EVS, Harris, Ikegami, Lawo, Mackie, Omneon, Quantel, Riedel, RTW, Telex, Barco

 

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Frequency Analysis of the Brands in the in the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table:  

In order to provide a better understanding of which brands were most highly ranked in each geography, the data has been provided in  the table below, which shows the global and regional performance for each brand in the top 30 ranking of overall opinion.

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Frequency Analysis of Brands in the 2011 BBS Overall Brand Opinion League Table

The frequency chart shows some interesting geographic variation in the data.

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Appearing in the top 30 “overall opinion” ranking globally + one region

Two brands managed to achieve a top 30 ranking in the global overall opinion league table, despite being in the top 30 of only one of the
three geographic regions.

  • Audio-Technica (Asia Pacific), RTS Intercom Systems (Americas)

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Appearing in the top 30 “overall opinion” ranking in one region

The following 13 brands did not make the top 30 in the global league table of overall opinion, but they did appear in the top 30 overall opinion ranking in one of the geographic regions:

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Appearing in the top 30 “overall opinion” ranking only in EMEA

  • Barco, EVS, Lawo, Quantel, Riedel, RTW

 

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Appearing in the top 30 “overall opinion” ranking  only in Asia-Pacific

  • Omneon

 

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Appearing in the top 30 “overall opinion” ranking  only in the Americas

  • Electro-Voice, Evertz, Harris, Ikegami, Mackie, Telex

 

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Please keep in mind when reviewing this information that all data these charts are presented in alphabetical order, not in the order brands were ranked by respondents to the 2011 BBS.  Also, the charts in this posting measure the responses of all non-vendor participants in the 2011 BBS respondents, regardless of their company type, company size, geographic location, job title and budget for broadcast technology products.

In order to get full value from this data, it is necessary to evaluate these results on a granular basis.  If you would like more  information, please contact Devoncroft Partners.

 .

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This article is based on the findings from the 2011 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS), a global study of industry trends, technology purchasing behavior and the opinion of vendor brands.  With more than 8,000 people in 100+ countries participating, the 2011 BBS is the largest and most comprehensive market study ever done in the broadcast industry.

Devoncroft Partners has published a variety of reports from 2011 BBS data.  For more information, please get in touch.

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Avid Reports 5th Consecutive Quarter of Year-on-Year Revenue Growth

broadcast industry technology trends, broadcast technology market research, Broadcast technology vendor financials, Quarterly Results | Posted by Joe Zaller
Apr 21 2011

Avid announced that its revenue for the first quarter of 2011 was $166.3m, an increase of 6.6% versus the same period a year ago, and 14.8% lower than the previous quarter.

The company posted a GAAP net loss of $15.5m for the quarter, versus a GAAP loss of $13.5m last year, and a GAAP net loss of $571,000 last quarter. Excluding charges for amortization of intangible assets, stock-based compensation, restructuring and other charges and related tax adjustments the company net loss for the quarter was $0.8m.

The GAAP operating loss for the first quarter of 2011 was $3.4m. However, on a non-GAAP basis, the company posted an operating profit of $0.9m for the quarter.

 

Highlights for the first quarter:

  • Video revenue in the quarter was $94.7m, an increase of 12.2% versus the same period a year ago, and a decline of 19.6% versus the previous quarter.  Video revenue accounted for 57% of the total revenue during the quarter, versus 60% last quarter.
  • Audio revenue in the quarter was $71.7m, flat versus the same period a year ago, and down 7.6% versus the previous quarter.
  • Revenue from products was $137.3m, an increase of 6.6% versus the same period a year ago, and down 15% versus the previous quarter.  Product revenue accounted for 82.5% of the total revenue during the quarter.
  • Service revenue in the quarter was $29m, an increase of 6% versus last year, and up 92% versus the previous quarter.

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Avid chairman and CEO Gary Greenfield issued an upbeat statement, saying “We are building on the momentum we established throughout the past year. This quarter represented the third consecutive quarter that we achieved a non-GAAP operating profit. With a number of new products now in the market, and a Q1 non-GAAP operating profit for the first time since 2007, we are off to a solid start for the year.”

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Related Content:
Press release: Avid Announces Results for First Quarter

Information about Avid’s previous quarter (Q4 2010) is here

Avid’s previous year (Q1 2010) earning release is here.
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