Netflix holds steady under threat from Disney and Apple, but it may be feeling the heat already
Disney+ and Apple TV+ were never going to wipe out Netflix overnight, but the quintessential streaming service is already feeling the pressure from its new competitors and their unfathomably deep pockets.
Netflix shared in its latest earnings report that it added 8.8 million new subscribers (net) in the final quarter of 2019. That figure is bigger than Netflix indicated, and it surpassed analysts’ expectations, Yahoo News reports. For that matter, revenue and earnings for Netflix’s fourth quarter of 2019 also beat expectations—however the company warned investors that it may have taken a hit from the competition when it comes to recent growth in the U.S. and Canada (UCAN).
“Our low membership growth in UCAN is probably due to our recent price changes and to US competitive launches,” the company revealed in its report. “We have seen more muted impact from competitive launches outside the US (NL, CA, AU).”
Here are the key numbers:
Domestic growth has slowed for Netflix over time. As a result, it’s shifted attention internationally. Netflix added 1.5 million net new subscribers in the U.S. and Canada during the same quarter last year, but overall subscriber growth was as strong in the fourth quarter of 2019 as it was a year earlier. Netflix anticipates it will add around 7 million new subscribers in the current quarter, below analysts’ expectations. For now, Netflix investors don’t seem rattled: During after-hours trading, Netflix stock was up by more than two percent.
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