Netflix: growth in new subscribers is lower than expected

Netflix announced at the presentation of its quarterly figures that the number of new subscribers is lower than expected. The announcement follows a number of quarters with a strong increase in new members.

Netflix wrote in a letter to its shareholders that it expected to gain 6.2 million new subscribers in the past quarter. That didn’t happen, instead the actual number was 1 million lower at 5.2 million members. The company says the forecast is about internal expectations and that it is sometimes above and sometimes below. However, since the beginning of 2016, it has never been below a million; it happened that growth turned out to be a lot higher than expected. Membership growth has remained the same compared to the same quarter last year.

The total number of Netflix subscribers now stands at 130 million, of which approximately 73 million belong to the international membership base outside the US. For the coming quarter, Netflix expects to add another 5 million members, roughly the same growth rate in the same quarter a year ago. Other than “slowly adjusting prices to accommodate currency fluctuations,” Netflix doesn’t say anything specific about planned price or subscription changes. Recently, there was talk of a possibly more expensive Ultra subscription.

Netflix’s net profit for the past quarter was $384 million, compared to $66 million in the second quarter of 2017. The streaming service’s earnings continue to rise steadily. Revenue came in at $3.9 billion compared to $2.8 billion a year ago.