Netflix reported a loss of 200,000 subscribers worldwide compared to their Q4 review and foreshadows more losses. It is estimated they could make a loss of 2 million subscribers in the 2nd quarter and this may be due to password sharing on the streaming service.
In the letter to their shareholders, Netflix said “our revenue growth has slowed considerably. Covid clouded the picture by significantly increasing our growth in 2020, leading us to believe that most of our slow growth in 2021 was due to the Covid pull forward.” Although Netflix is still popular with millions of subscribers, it is still facing some new challenges which they are working on to overcome and make it better for viewers.
600,000 customers that Netflix have lost has come from the US and Canada and this was “largely the result of our price change which is tracking in-line with our expectations.” Along with all challenges comes solutions and Netflix said “our plan is to reaccelerate our viewing and revenue growth by continuing to improve all aspects of Netflix – in particular the quality of our programming and recommendations, which is what our members value most. On the content side, we’re doubling down on story development and creative excellence” and “on the product side, we recently launched ‘double thumbs up’ so members can better express what they truly love verses simply like – enabling us to continue to improve our personalised recommendations and overall experience. Over the longer term, much of our growth will come from outside the US” Netflix says.
One of the avenues and sectors Netflix has developed into is gaming announcing their latest partnership with Exploding Kittens. This partnership will produce both a mobile game and animated series for all Netflix watchers. They are currently relying on their Netflix favourites such as Bridgerton being one, to bring in the views.