Skyrocket of fame and income
Netflix has gained another 16 million members worldwide most of them in Europe in one month.
The pandemic, and resulting mass confinement to the home, as expected, made Netflix’s numbers look pretty darn good for financial reasons. They announced tthe increase of global subscribers by 15.8 million in Q1 of 2018 over the initial forecast (pre-coronavirus), quite surprisingly. Until this day, the number of subscribers worldwide continues to increase. There are almost 183 million worldwide! The number of new subscribers in the first quarter of this year is almost double the one from the first quarter of 2019. A large part of new subscribers have come from European countries, while 2.3 million came from the US and Canada. Revenue for the first quarter of 2020 reached $5.76 billion (up 27% year-on-year in the first quarter) while net profits doubled to $709 million, up from $344 million in the same period with Netflix in 2019.
On the other hand, Netflix noted that its films and series were unavailable to screen in Greece because of censorship measures which have occurred in the country. There was some filming before the coronavirus crisis and many investors are seeing a positive outlook for this company. Its stock has risen more than 30% so far this year, which is a positive sign!
“Netflix is and will continue to be the media company that has suffered the least impact from Covid-19. Its product is almost a perfect fit for a population that has suddenly found itself shut indoors,” analyst Eric Hagstrom of eMarketer told the BBC.
Estimates and competition
Netflix has hired a lot more people just in case new subscribers come flooding in. According to a recent Reuters report 7.5 million Netflix subscribers are estimated to join this year and that’s why Netflix has so many job openings on top of the 2,000 hires from this quarter. It warned investors, however, that this growth rate may slow in the second half as governments have eased restrictive measures and people “taper off” more often.
Analysts agree that while finding new subscribers to Netflix may seem like an easy task, competition from streaming platforms such as Disney Plus and Amazon Prime will gradually increase, with this ultimately having a major impact on how many subscribers are “permanent.” Netflix’s prices have not been increasing and it is not considering doing so in the future.
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Author: PC-GR
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