It comes as no surprise that the King of the streaming industry and the real pioneer of online streaming Netflix is the largest streaming service. Previously the numbers were known to be around 140 million subscribers, having the largest share in the industry. However, the numbers disclose after the 2020 Q4 meeting are staggeringly high!
Netflix now has more than 200 million subscribers maintaining its position at the top, despite having new entrants such as Disney Plus, a service backed by massive funds and resources. Other new entrants include NBC’s Peacock and HBO Max.
However, Disney plus is also gaining subscribers quite rapidly with around 86.9 million in its first year only. Even with Disney’s huge portfolio and promotion tactics such as free subscriptions in the Netherlands along with a few other countries and deals with Verizon. Netflix’s success and domination seems far more powerful as consumers are still opting for it despite a more than half price tag.
As per Statista, “Netflix had 195.15 million paid subscribers worldwide as of the third quarter of 2020. Most Netflix subscribers are based in the United States, with the U.S. accounting for over 73 million of Netflix’s total global subscriber base.”
The company noticed a growth in subscribers starting October 2020 until the end of the year. The subscriber base has increased by 8.51 million in just 3 months! Another aspect of the overall increase in subscribers during the entire year is largely due to the Covid-19 lockdowns. Despite, having said that, a growth until December does indicate other factors and real consumer interest.
The company’s analysts had not expected such a large expansion despite the ongoing upwards trend in the number of subscriptions.
The real reason behind Netflix’s sheer dominance in the industry is its high quality original content. For example in Q4 alone the Netflix Original series “The Crown“, having more than 100 million views and growing!
According to C.E.O, Reed Hastings, “We’ve got a lot of subscribers here in the U.S. But we still have a lot more viewing time that we would like to earn with incredible service and incredible content,”
Therefore, there are 500 titles that are in post production stage as the market share is only growing, the company must maintain its USP to keep its subscribers stick to it and it does reflect in the C.E.O’s statement that it does understand this key point as the competition is only growing with new streaming services lined up to launch.
Investors went crazy about Netflix’s stock because of unexpectedly strong growth, as well as news that Netflix’s financial assets are strong enough for the company to consider share buybacks and stop taking credit to fund its day-to-day operations. In recent trading on Wednesday, shares jumped 14 percent to $571.18.
