Technology has changed everything so much. It is far easier to do things than it was a couple of decades ago. The internet has changed the way people can access entertainment and media. Even before a decade ago the only way you could watch a movie was to go to a movie theatre or buy a CD. All of that has changed now. Today you don’t have to go to a movie theatre to watch a movie. All you need is a mobile phone and internet connection. You can stream any movie you want. Even though there were few platforms before they are not as popular as the ones that are present today.

 If you have a subscription to one of the movie streaming services you can watch anything from their library. Does any movie streaming platform come to your mind that made this trend popular? If you are thinking about Netflix then you are absolutely right me Netflix is the platform that has revolutionized the way people watch movies and shows. In the past few years, Netflix has become one of the most popular and favorite platforms for millennials. It has been able to do this because it was able to give the audience maximum entertainment at the comfort of their homes. But do you know who owns it? Probably not. This article will tell you that.

But before getting into the ownership details let’s see how it all started.

History of Netflix

Most of the people who know about Netflix only know it as an online platform that streams movies. But this is not how the company was when it first started. Netflix started out as a company that deals with sales and rentals of DVDs. It was founded by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in 1997. Before finding Netflix Reed Hastings owned Pure Atria where Marc Randolph worked as a marketing director. Netflix was founded after Reed Hastings sold Pure Atria for $700 million dollars to Rational Software Corporation. He used $2.5 million to start Netflix. They wanted to increase profit through e-commerce as they saw the potential in it. But all of that seemed very difficult as it was a big task to deliver VHS tapes without damaging them.

This is the time when they came to know about  DVDs. After they made sure that the DVDs can be delivered easily without getting damaged they decided to rent them instead. After this Netflix became the first online rental store with nearly more than 900 titles. It used the pay per rent model that was similar to Blockbuster. In 1999 Netflix launched its monthly subscription model. After that, it started a flat fee model wherein you pay a certain amount of money and you could rent unlimited CDs without any due dates. It has seen losses and was offered a huge amount of money by Blockbuster for its acquisition. The offer was declined and Netflix saw a huge increase in profit in 2002. In the same year, the company had its initial public offering. Netflix started its streaming service in 2007 and we all know what happened after that.

Who owns Netflix

As you already know Netflix is a public company. There is no individual owner of the company. The shares are owned by many people and institutions. So let’s take a look at the individuals who own most shares of the company. 

Reed Hastings

Reed Hastings who is the co-founder and CEO of Netflix owns the most shares as an individual. He owns 1% of the total shares of the company. The total net worth of Reed Hastings is estimated to be $5 billion. 

Leslie J. Kilgore

She has been the non-executive member of the board of directors of Netflix since 2012. Prior to that, she worked as Chief Marketing Officer in the company.  Leslie owns 0.02% of the total shares of the company. This is nearly 35,200 shares of the company. Kilgore is also a member of the board of directors of Nextdoor, Medallia, and Pinterest.

David Hyman

David Hyman worked as the secretary and General Counsel of the company from 2002. He owns 0.01% of the company’s total shares which more than 31,600 shares.

Now that you learned about the individual stakeholders you have to look at the institutional shareholders. This is important as 83% of the company is owned by these stakeholders. Let’s look at the institutions that own most shares.

Capital Research Global Investors

This company owns nearly 38 million shares of Netflix which is an outstanding 8.6% of the company. It has major stakes in many companies but Netflix is its second-largest holding. 

Vanguard Group Inc

This is also a company that owns shares in Netflix. Vanguard Group Inc owns shares of some of the biggest companies in the world like Apple and Facebook. It owns 34.1 million shares of Netflix which is nearly 7.8% of the company. 

BlackRock Inc

This is another company that owns shares in some of the biggest companies. BlackRock Inc also owns shares in Apple and Facebook. It owns 28.4 million shares of Netflix which is nearly 6.5% of the company. 

Conclusion

Netflix has made it easy for people to watch movies. It has become more than a popular movie streaming platform. Netflix has become a cultural phenomenon. Today we often hear the phrase Netflix and chill. Not only movies but it also popularized web series. It releases all the episodes of shows at once so you can binge-watch. Apart from that you can watch documentaries and stand up comedy specials by the best comedians in the world. The popularity of the platform is only increasing. If you want to know how it became successful you can check out the business model of Netflix. Apart from that, you can also know about people who own popular companies. If you want to know who owns Buzzfeed then click here.

Supermarkets have become an essential part of people’s lives. Especially for the ones who are living in urban regions. People living in cities are always in a hurry. They don’t have much free time and when they do they don’t want to spend it going all around the city to get the things they want for their homes. This is the reason why supermarkets have become so popular. People don’t have to go to different places tk buy things. All they have to do is go to a supermarket and get all the things they need. You can not only buy rice but you can also buy a rice cooker. Some of these retail supermarket chains are popular all around the world. One of them is Walmart. Many people don’t know who actually owns it. This article will tell you who owns Walmart.

Before that let’s take a quick look at how it all started.

History of Walmart

It all began in 1945 when Sam Walton bought a branch of the Ben Franklin stores that belonged to the Butler brothers. Sam Walton wanted to sell goods for a lesser price compared to others in the market. Luckily, he found suppliers that will sell him goods for cheaper rates. He wanted to sell more goods so that he could make more profit. It yielded results and he saw a 45% increase in sales during the first year. This branch was generating more than $250,000 by the end of the fifth year. After his lease expired he couldn’t get a renewal for his agreement. After that, he opened a store in Bentonville and named Walton’s Five And Dime. In 1969 it was incorporated into Wal-Mart Inc. By the time the company celebrated its 25th anniversary, it was generating almost $16 billion.

Besides the retail supermarket chain, Walmart also owns a satellite network. By 1990 Walmart was generating more sales compared to any other supermarket chain in the United States. In 1995 after opening stores in every state in the United States it ventured into international markets. Walmart opened stores in Argentina and Brazil. Currently, Walmart is one of the largest retail supermarket chains in the world. It has stores in more than 27 countries with different names. The company is estimated to be generating $514 billion dollars. Another fun fact is that Walmart is the world’s largest private employer with 2.2 million employees working all over the world. Most of the company is owned by the Walton family. Walton family is the richest family in the United States. from that there are also people and institutions that own a stake in the company. 

Let’s find out who these people and institutions are. 

Nearly 30% of the company is owned by institutional investors. This may look like a lot but it is very less compared to the other large companies in the world. Most of the stock is in one way or another is owned by the Walton family as they hold 50.1% of the total shares of the company. 

Walton Enterprises LLC

Walton enterprises own more shares than anyone. It owns one billion shares which is almost 35% of the company. Walton Enterprises is a private holding company through which the Walton family members manage their operations at Walmart. In 2020 Walmart Enterprises transferred 400 million shares to Walton Family Holdings Trust which didn’t affect the number of shares owned by the Walton family in any way. 

Walton Family Holdings Trust

As mentioned earlier, in 2020 Walmart Family Holdings Trust received 400 million shares from Walmart Enterprises. This makes it the second institution that owns majority shares in the company. This is about 15% of the company’s shares. When it was formed in the year 2015 it received 194 million shares. Almost all of the shares were sold. Creating Walton Family Trust helped the Walton family in running the company more efficiently. The money generated by this organization is used for charitable purposes. 

Vanguard Group Inc

Vanguard Group Inc owns shares of many top companies in the world like Apple and Facebook. It also owns shares of Walmart. Vanguard Group Inc owns 137.6 million shares of Walmart which is nearly 5% of the total company. This company has more than 6.2 trillion in assets all over the world. Now that you know that what are the institutions that own shares of Walmart let’s look at the individual stakeholders. If you look at all that you have learned until you will easily understand that members of the Walton Family most individual shares. 

S Robson Walton

He is known as Rob Walton. Rob Walton is the son of the founder of Walmart Sam Walton. This person owns 2.6 million shares of the company who is about 0.09% of the company. He joined the company after seven years of its foundation. He has been one of the board of directors of the company for 23 years. Rob Walton has witnessed the company start as a small chain and grow into one of the biggest companies in the world. Rob Walton is also a lawyer. According to Forbes magazine, the net worth of Sam Walton is $56 billion.

Marc E Lore

Marc E Lore is the one who is responsible for the growth of Walmart’s e-commerce in the US. She has done this when she began working as a president and chief executive of the e-commerce wing of the company. She made Walmart able to compete with Amazon. Walmart bought a company called Jet.com for $3 billion dollars that were co-founded by Lore. Lore owns 1.95 million shares in the company which is nearly 0.07% of the total company.

C Douglas McMillon 

Douglas McMillon is a person who has been a part of Walmart for over 30 years. It is fascinating to know that he started to work for the company when he was a teenager. From there he went onto become the company’s CEO and president in 2014. He owns 1.2 million shares of Walmart. This is about 0.05% of the total company.

Conclusion

Walmart is right now the largest revenue-generating retail supermarket chain in the world. The coming years are definitely going to witness it increase its reach. You can look at the business model of Walmart, you can understand how it works and how it makes money.

Are you a social media person? Oops, wrong question. Which social media platform you use to connect with your friends and family. There are many social media networks in the market now such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. It is not an exaggeration to say that it would be impossible for people to connect with their closed ones without social media platforms.

These platforms have made it easy for people to connect with each other. From throwbacks moments to recent happenings they can share everything about their life on these platforms for their friends and family to see. No matter how far they are from each other they can know what is happening in each other’s lives. 

People must thank technology for bringing people closer no matter how far they live from each other now. Although you may not physically be present beside them you can still connect and know what is going on in their lives. 

Nobody remembers when the beginning of these social media platforms, for some it is myspace for others it is Facebook or something else. Your mobile will have at least one social media app that connects you with the outside world.

Over the years the growth of social media has given rise to new apps launching into the market. The social media industry is worth around 3.6 billion in 2020 and by 2025 it is expected to grow around $15.6 billion.

One such social media platform’s business model you will be knowing about in this article is Tumblr. This social media platform is a combination of both social networking and microblogging. With new social media platforms emerging every day this app is working its way to the top. But before you move further to know about the business model and how it makes money. First, you must know what Tumblr is and how it works?

Curious to know more about this Tumblr? Then what are you waiting for? Let’s dive straight into the topic then.

Tumblr 

Tumblr is one of the leading social media platforms. The users can do both microblog and social networking on this platform. This platform was founded by David Karp back in 2007. It has risen to become one of the most popular microblogging, blogging and social networking platforms. Although the platform was launched in 2007, the idea behind Tumblr took its inception in 2006.

The founder, David, was interested in the short form of blogs. When the existing blogging websites have not released it. He along with developer Marco Arment has decided to create their own tumblelogging platform. This is the story behind Tumblr. Within two weeks of its launch, this platform has gained around 75,000 users. 

In June 2012, this platform featured its first major brand advertising campaign. They have collaborated with Adidas for this campaign. But 2013 has brought good things for this platform. It was acquired by Yahoo for 1.1 billion dollars in cash. Even after the acquisition, David Karp remained the CEO. Currently, Tumblr is under Verizon, which has acquired Yahoo back in 2016.

Now, this brings us to the question, how does this platform work. This platform is perfect for the content creators because they can find a relevant audience to their content here. As you see, this platform is not much different from other social media platforms, it has a similar operating system as the other blogging sites. This platform has surpassed 472 million registered accounts in 2019.

Currently, in 2020, it has around 292.5 million unique users across the globe. This platform ranks 7th among the leading social media platforms worldwide. Although it has the same operating model like other platforms what makes it different from other platforms is the features it offers to its users with numerous amazing features that will help them in showing their creativity to their audience.

Tumblr has a dashboard-type of an interface which is quite convenient to its users. This is the main page of Tumblr where they can find the posts of people they follow. From here the users can follow, comment, like and share the posts of others. Also, the best part is they can share the posts on their other social media accounts i..e, Facebook and Twitter.

Tumblr app is available for mobile users in Blackberry, Android, iOS and Windows. It provides its users with amazing features like scheduling and private options. Yup, you heard it right. The users can make their blogs private or schedule the posts to the time they want to publish. If you want to find the topics of your interest then you can use the tags.

There is another interesting feature of this platform. No other social media platform is offering this feature. Yup, it is exclusive in Tumblr. The users can change the appearance of their profile using the HTML code. Sounds, cool right? This is the reason why more people are interested in this platform as they can reflect their personality and style on their blog.  With fan mail, the users can send messages to the blogs they follow. 

Although Tumblr is a platform that will help creators to put out their creativity and show their best work. But the thing is that this platform makes a lot less revenue compared to its purchase price. So this has become a growing concern for the investors. And with each passing day, the other social media platforms are coming up with more and more ways to make income.

So if Tumblr wants to stay in the competition then it has to find the user base and also a way to make money. This may seem a problem, but it is true that this platform needs more sources that bring in money. There are quite a few sources and you will learn more about them here. 

Now that you have understood the business model of Tumblr. It is time to understand its revenue. What are you waiting for? Let’s know how this platform makes money. 

How does Tumblr make money?

As you already know this platform has a good user base and with each passing year, more and more people are joining this platform. Since its inception, the revenue model of this platform has not changed. The primary source of income for this platform is advertisements. 

Targeted Advertisements

Advertisements are a major source of income for many social media platforms. With the increasing popularity and the user base on these platforms. Business is also using these apps to find their targeted audience. Yup, businesses have seen that these platforms actually help them in reaching their targeted audience. So they are running targeted advertisements on these platforms.

Tumblr is no different, they place advertisements in the dashboard of the user. They call it a sponsored post. Although these posts are not that different from other posts, it is just that they are highly targeted. These ads will be directed towards the audience that follows similar interests relating to the business that advertises. Since it is highly targeted there are high chances that more targeted audiences see this ad. It also has in-stream ads. It is impossible to distinguish these ads, as they appear like regular posts. Since it looks like a normal post more and more people click on it. The sponsored posts can be in the sidebars or may appear on the dashboard. 

Sponsored apps

Apart from the above-mentioned ads, Tumblr has also started displaying another type of ads. These are quite similar to the sponsored posts because they are highly targeted to reach more audience. Also, they will be targeted based on the preferences of the blogs they follow. Now, coming to the point, these advertisements are called Tumblr sponsored apps. Also, you must note that these ads are available for a wide range of posts. They are, especially for mobile apps and games. Whenever a user clicks on this particular ad they will be directly redirected to that particular app in platforms from where the users can download.

So the users can directly download from there and use it. See if people accidentally also clicked on these ads they will be redirected to the platforms such as play store or Apple store. One they being people there are high chances that they will actually download the app. So no business wants to lose such an opportunity. Most of the businesses will be glad to take up such an opportunity. Sponsored apps are truly a new way of displaying ads. As you see Tumblr doesn’t make money because through ads like all other social media platforms. However, they are promoting ads in new ways and are becoming quite successful in it too. 

Premium Themes 

Apart from advertisements this another source of revenue for Tumblr. As you already know people can change the appearance of their blog by changing the HTML code. As you know, more and more people will be interested to show their true personality. So do you think selling themes in a market place will be effective or not? Obviously effective.

Tumblr provides its users with a market place where they can buy or sell themes for their blogs. This is especially profitable because more people have now understood the demand for these premium themes as they want to make their blog extremely good looking. As you already an attractive blog will attract more attention. And the more people visit the blog the better.

Sponsored day 

As you already know these platforms have different types of ads and the way they promote them is also quite unique. One of the biggest forms of advertisement that this platform offers is sponsored day advertising. In this type of advertising, the brands can have the whole day of the platform to themselves. But to get it they must first by cross-platform exclusive promotion on Tumblr. With this type of advertisement, the brand can get featured on the dashboard, home page.

If you think this is it, then you’re wrong. The brand will also get an exclusive tab on the explore page that is filled with the selected content. The sponsored day is best for a business that is trying to penetrate into the market, it is also suitable for businesses that are working towards growing their brand awareness. One whole day placing yourself on the app in most important places can work wonders for any business. So there is no doubt that sponsored day is the major part of advertisements for Tumblr.

Promoting the posts

If you think the above mentioned are the only sources of income for this platform then you’re highly wrong. Tumblr also makes revenue from promoting posts of its users. As you already know this platform is excellent for most content creators. They can reach their target audience. And also receive exposure to their content. But with many creators on the platform sometimes it can get hard for them to attract the attention of their targeted audience. However, they can reach their targeted audience easily by promoting their posts. All they have to do is pay $1 for their post to be highlighted in the follower’s dashboard.

As you the more people notice the post, the more chances of it going viral. Apart from creating a new revenue source for the platform, it was also created with an intention to help posts become viral. Not only this, Tumblr is a data partner with lots of brands and agencies. So with all the data they gather regarding users in the platform, they can give brands in-depth advertising of what’s happening in the platform and user thinking. This way brands can track the impact of their posts on the users. While Tumblr can make good money. 

Wrapping up

Tumblr is one of the popular social media platforms out there. Although it is not similar to Instagram or Facebook. It has its own way of connecting people. The strong point of this platform is definitely blogging. As you see there was a shortage of microblogging platforms in the market and thankfully Tumblr has come along and filled that void. People can express their thoughts whilst connecting with their favourite bloggers.

They can like, share, comment and follow the other bloggers similar to other social media platforms. The best part of this platform is that the users can change the look and feel of their blog. If you’re a content creator and want to attract more audience then Tumblr is perfect for you. As you have made it to the end of this article, hope you have good more details about Tumblr business model and how it makes money. In case if you want to read more about such articles then check out the business models category in Postling.