Netflix loses subscribers for first time in 10 years – and expects to lose more

theguardian.com:

Netflix lost subscribers for the first time in 10 years at the start of the year and said it expects to lose even more in the spring, sending its share price crashing again on Tuesday.

The streaming giant’s share price initially fell close to 20% on news that ​​it had lost 200,000 subscribers globally during the first quarter. Netflix expects to lose two million global subscribers in the current quarter.

The company blamed a number of factors including its huge size, increased competition, the economy, war in Ukraine, slowing roll-out of broadband and the large number of people who share their Netflix accounts with non-paying households for the fall. It also said the decision to close up shop in Russia cost the company 700,000 new additions.

“Streaming is winning over linear, as we predicted, and Netflix titles are very popular globally. However, our relatively high household penetration – when including the large number of households sharing accounts – combined with competition, is creating revenue growth headwinds,” the company said in a note to investors.

The company recently announced acrackdown on people sharing their Netflix accounts with other households in Chile, Costa Rica and Peru. It is expected to expand the scheme.

According to its latest financial report, on top of its 222m paying households Netflix is being shared with over 100m additional households, an issue that makes it “harder to grow membership in many markets” and a problem that was obscured by the company’s growth during the Covid pandemic.

“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,”