To give credit where credit is due, it is hard to be a streaming company the same way that it’s hard to do anything these days. But Netflix has really had a tough year. Following their not-so-great first quarter was a pretty bad second quarter where they lost 970,000 subscribers from April 1st to June 30th. But, it’s okay! Netflix isn’t upset, according to Netflix.
The company had projected an almost two million subscriber loss earlier this year, so, in terms of setting themselves up for disappointment, they did pretty well. Or they are bad at predicting things. It can really go either way.
Netflix currently has 220.67 million subscribers worldwide and projects that they are going to gain an additional one million subs in Quarter 3, which ends Sept. 30th. While it won’t have another season of Stranger Things to boost those sub counts, Netflix is probably hoping that cracking down on password-sharing and introducing ad-supported tiers will help to even out their subscriber count once parents kick their college kids off their family accounts.
For some perspective, Disney+ and Hulu have a combined 205.6 million subscribers as of April, while Paramount+ trails behind with 62.4 million. It seems like South Park: The Streaming Wars unfortunately did not help their streaming numbers. It’s tough all around!
