Netflix Loses Another Million Subscribers, Though Less Than Expected

Netflix lost 970,000 subscribers in the second quarter of this year. Although the streaming giant has to hand in paying customers, the damage is less serious than expected. In Q3, the company expects to gain roughly one million new subscribers.

The year 2022 has been tough for Netflix so far, as subscribers dropped last quarter for the first time in a decade. In response to that drop, the streaming service expected to lose another two million paying customers, but that has been limited to just under a million subscribers, according to the recent quarterly figures from Netflix. More than 220 million people worldwide still have a Netflix subscription and that should increase again in the next quarter to more than 221 million customers.

The results from the Asian-Pacific and South American markets in particular were very good, according to Netflix. In the former market the number of subscribers increased by more than a million and in the latter region it was mainly the average turnover per membership that rose.

That may be partly due to Netflix’s recent experiments. The company has been experimenting with new subscription models since the beginning of this year to boost the numbers. A sub-account system was introduced in some countries in South America in March, which may already be paying off in the region. Netflix writes: “We are optimistic about our early results and our ability to move consumers in Latin America to the ‘paid-sharing’ model.”

The quarterly figures show that sales from the South American market increased by 19 percent compared to last year, while the number of subscribers there remained the same. Since this week, a trial has also been started whereby households have to pay extra if an account is shared for longer than two weeks. This test also takes place in Latin America.

In the end, despite the declining number of subscribers, Netflix still has a turnover increase of almost 9 percent. In Q2 of 2022, the streaming service earned just under 8 billion dollars, converted 7.8 billion euros. Net profit decreased by approximately 150 million euros compared to the previous quarter, but at roughly 1.4 billion euros, it is still higher than in the same quarter last year. The company said the results would have been even better if the strong dollar hadn’t had an adverse effect on other exchange rates.

The fourth season of Stranger Things is the most watched English-language season ever, according to Netflix with 1.3 billion hours of viewing in its first 28 days.