Cable Company iPad Apps Are Killing It

Time Warner Cable's earnings call revealed that its iPad app was downloaded 360,000 times during its first month of availability. Cablevision revealed that it saw 50,000 downloads in the first five days of app availability, and Comcast shared that its Xfinity TV app has been downloaded more than 1.5 million times since its launch in November.

What’s the message? Cable subscribers are highly amenable to the idea of accessing content on their iPads. It’s also worth noting that Time Warner Cable lost only 65,000 subscribers this past quarter (and even gained subscribers in March, according to the Time Warner Cable CFO Robert Marcus), while it lost 155,000 during the quarter before that, and 141,000 two quarters ago. It’s probably too early to infer that the iPad app is the reason behind the decrease in subscriber bleed. But it’s worth considering that the iPad is a significant variable that’s been introduced only recently, and if these download numbers are any indication, it definitely seems to be a hit among cable subscribers.