A new report by one Wall Street analyst claims that five years after launch Google Fiber has just 53,000 pay TV subscribers. According to new analysis by MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett, that number is "astonishingly low" for the volume of hype surrounding the project. A report from Berstein Research last October indicated that while the number of total Google Fiber customers is larger at 120,000 -- that's not all that impressive either.
"[W]e presume that Google has many more broadband subscribers than video ones. Still, this latest data is a useful barometer of just how slowly all this happens, and just how tiny Google Fiber remains in the grand scheme of things," states the analyst.
Moffett notes that at the end of 2015, Google Fiber had just 12,189 video subscribers in Kansas City, Kansas, 37,338 TV subscribers in Kansas City, Missouri, 2,718 TV subscribers in Provo, Utah, and 941 video subscribers in Austin, Texas. And while the company's 53,390 total is up from 29,867 one year earlier, just 12,000 TV subscribers were added in the last six months.
Adding just 12,000 users in six months "for a service that has generated this kind of fanfare isn’t terribly impressive," notes Moffett.
Given the fact Google Fiber is largely building its networks from scratch, the slow numbers are disappointing but not surprising. And while Google Fiber currently only offers "live" service in Austin, Provo, and Kansas City, the company's currently building massive networks in Atlanta, Charlotte, San Antonio, Salt Lake City, and Raleigh/Durham -- with markets like Los Angeles, Phoenix, Portland, San Diego and Chicago on deck.
That's prompted other analysts to note there should be a notable spike once those bigger markets come online over the next few years.
Google Fiber also has placed the heaviest marketing emphasis on its $70, gigabit connections, and many consumers may just no longer see the point in traditional TV. And again, Google Fiber has also made it clear that part of its pricey experiment involves educating and inspiring other municipalities, companies and private/public partnerships to follow Google Fiber's attempts to bring competition to a broadband duopoly once believed to be utterly undisruptable.