Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, April 20: Netflix’s shares dropped 20% after the company disclosed a 2 lakh paid subscriber loss in the first quarter of 2022, marking the company’s first subscriber loss in almost a decade.
Furthermore, the company predicts a 20 lakh global paying subscriber loss in the second quarter (Q2) of 2022.
Netflix’s member count has dropped to 221.6 million, down from 221.8 million in the previous quarter.
“The suspension of our service in Russia and winding-down of all Russian paid memberships resulted in a 7 lakh impact on paid net adds; excluding this impact, paid net additions totalled 5 lakh,” the company said in a statement late on Tuesday.
According to the firm, it expects to attract 2.5 million net subscribers in the first quarter, compared to 4 million in the same time last year.
The key challenge for membership growth is continuing soft acquisition across all markets. The company recently announced that, in addition to its 222 million paying subscribers, the streaming service is used by over 100 million extra homes.
“Account sharing as a percentage of our paying membership hasn’t changed much over the years, but, coupled with the first factor, means it’s harder to grow membership in many markets – an issue that was obscured by our Covid growth,” the company noted.
“We are experiencing strong growth in a variety of markets including Japan, India, Philippines, Thailand, and Taiwan,” Netflix said of its development in APAC.
In the first quarter, it made $7.78 billion in revenue. In the first quarter, operating activities generated $923 million in net cash.