SAN FRANCISCO, US —
Netflix reported losing
subscribers for the second quarter in a row Tuesday as the streaming giant
battles fierce competition and viewer belt tightening, but the company assured
investors of better days ahead.
اضافة اعلان
The loss of 970,000 paying customers in the most
recent quarter was not as big as expected, and left Netflix with just shy of
221 million subscribers.
“Tough in some ways, losing a million and calling it
success, but really we are set up very well for the next year,” the company’s
co-chief and founder Reed Hastings said in an earnings presentation.
The company said in its earnings report that it had
expected to gain a million paid subscribers in the current quarter.
Netflix shares were up slightly in after-market
trades — a sign that investors were remaining faithful.
Analysts noted that the results, even if not as poor
as feared, were still troubling.
“Netflix’s subscriber loss was expected but it
remains a sore point for a company that is wholly dependent on subscription
revenue from consumers,” said analyst Ross Benes.
Benes added that “unless it finds more franchises
that resonate widely, it will eventually struggle to stay ahead of competitors
that are after its crown”.
Fewer free rides
Netflix executives have made
it clear the company will get tougher on sharing logins and passwords, which
allow many to access the platform’s content without paying.
“It is great that our members love Netflix movies
and TV shows so much they want to share them more broadly,” director of product
innovation Chengyi Long said Monday in a blog post.
“But today’s widespread account sharing between
households undermines our long-term ability to invest in and improve our
service.”
Long said that an “add a home” subscription feature
that Netflix in March began testing in
Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru will be
expanded to Argentina, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, El Salvador, and
Guatemala.
Netflix said it is aiming to have an account-sharing
payment system deployed broadly by next year.
Meanwhile, Netflix is working with Microsoft to
launch a cheaper subscription plan that includes advertisements, which The New
York Times has reported could launch by the end of this year.
Netflix opted to develop the lower-cost offering
after a disappointing first quarter in which it lost subscribers for the first
time in a decade — and after years of resistance against the very idea of
running ads.
Microsoft will be responsible for designing and
managing the platform for advertisers who want to serve ads to Netflix users.
“These earning results buy them time, and they need
time to focus on stopping the bleeding,” analyst
Rob Enderle of Enderle Group
told AFP.
“Netflix is facing a significant amount of
competition; to hold on as well as they have is an example of how resilient
they are but they are not out of the woods.”
‘Stranger Things’
Netflix has been investing
heavily in original content such as hit shows
“Squid Game” and “Stranger Things” to fend off powerhouse competitors such as
Disney, with its Marvel and Star Wars franchises.
The recently
released fourth season of “Stranger Things” racked up 1.3 billion hours of
viewing in just four weeks at Netflix, making it the platform’s biggest-ever
English language television release, according to the company.
Meanwhile, some
284 million hours were spent watching the latest season of “The Umbrella
Academy,” executives said.
Action-thriller
film “The Gray Man” — based on a novel of the same name, and set for release on
Netflix on Friday — is “mind-blowing,” co-chief Ted Sarandos said in the
earnings presentation.
“Netflix’s ability
to produce smash hit content is undoubted,” said GlobalData managing director
Neil Saunders.
“However, with the
loss of almost one million members since the prior quarter, translating this
into commercial success is proving to be more of a challenge.”
Challenges facing
Netflix include changing habits, as house-bound people who signed on for the
service during the height of the pandemic are re-evaluating their subscriptions
now that they are resuming their former lifestyles, Saunders noted.
The analyst
pointed out that Netflix had about 27.7 million more paid subscribers in the
recently ended quarter than it did in the same period a year earlier.
“Despite the
slowdown, Netflix isn’t in trouble,” Saunders said.
“However, to get
back into growth it will need to change — but that change needs to be more
about evolution than revolution.”
Read more Entertainment
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
