Well well well, look what we have here – all of a sudden it seems like it was a bad idea to announce an ad supported plan, and extra fees for sharing your account with grandma… or was it?
Netflix just released their second-quarter earnings reports and there’s some interesting stuff happening; the company has lost 970,000 subscribers, quite the uptick from the 200,000 sub loss in Q1. In case you need help from a math genius like myself – 970,000 is more than 200,000, at least I’m pretty sure.
Netflix also said in their report that they have “73.28 million paid subscribers in the US and Canada and 220.67 million worldwide” and they expect to add another million to their subscriber base in the third quarter. How’re you planning to do that, exactly? By raising prices and introducing ads? Oh yeah, people really love that sh*t.
However, Netflix said they have actually had revenue growth despite their subscriber loss:
The second quarter was better-than-expected on membership growth, and foreign exchange was worse-than-expected (stronger US dollar), resulting in 9 per cent revenue growth (13 per cent constant currency)
Netflix
So it’s clear whatever subs they’re losing isn’t a concern. After all, if Netflix is still making more money quarter after quarter, who cares? Though I have to say, that doesn’t spell a good future for consumers.
If a company like Netflix can continue to introduce inconveniences and price increases while losing little enough of their subscriber base that they still raking in more money, all that gives current subscribers is a worse experience and more bad video game spin-off shows.
