Netflix lost 400,000 subscribers in North America last quarter, coupled with the slowdown in Disney + subscriber growth, this may be bad news for the streaming industry.
According to the company's latest quarterly report, we may have to upgrade the saying from “Netflix 7 Chill†to "Netflix a little worried".
Netflix gained a whopping 4 million subscribers in the first quarter of 2021, bringing the total subscriber count to 209 million.
However, all new customers were from outside America (the US and Canadian subscribers were decreased by 400,000).
This is worrying given that the Average Revenue Per User(ARPU) is much higher in North America ($ 14.54) than in the emerging markets of Latin America and Asia ($ 10).
Pandemic to blame? , Netflix CFO Spencer Neumann Says COVID "literally caused a stir in the business". In the first quarter of 2020, the company added a whopping ~ 16 million subscribers from around the world.
With all of these early chillers/amateurs (aka customers who would otherwise have waited to sign up maybe in the future), a future slowdown in growth was expected, by people at Netflix.
The decline isn't putting the company out of business: Netflix spent $ 8 billion in the first half of 2021 and confirmed that they will be launching a gaming service (at no additional cost*).
A slowdown could be bad elsewhere, The Information previously reported that Disney+ has seen essentially zero subscriber growth in North America this year.
Disney + still has ~ 110 million subscribers. Other shows (HBO Max, NBC's Peacock, Apple TV +, Discovery +, and the upcoming CNN +) seem dispensable when people get tired of watching too much.
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