2019 hasn’t exactly been the most glowing year for Netflix as a whole, and the road ahead is starting to look even bumpier. The streaming service is facing tough competition moving forward as Disney, Apple and WarnerMedia are all working on their own exclusive digital subscription services, and it looks like consumers are taking note.
According to the company’s July 17th quarterly report, Netflix added only 2.7 million subscribers worldwide this quarter, barely half of the 5 million new customers it previously expected. Within six days of the report, the once-ubiquitous brand of streaming media shed more than $24 billion worth of value while its stock sunk 15 percent.
This news comes from The Hollywood Reporter, who also revealed that those who have invested in Netflix since the early days are still up, as its shares have surged 3,300 percent in less than nine years. But the so-called “streaming wars” have seemingly started to take a toll on the industry giant.
Of course, we also know that Netflix will soon be losing the rights to The Office and Friends, two of its most popular non-original shows. The Dunder Mifflin crew is headed to Universal’s upcoming streaming platform, while Monica, Joey, and co. are destined for WarnerMedia’s HBO Max service. Needless to say, subscribers aren’t exactly thrilled.
Pair those losses with just the idea that Netflix is thinking about introducing ads to its platform, and it’s no wonder the company is taking such a heavy loss. While analysts expect Netflix shares to rebound sometime in 2020, even the most merciful of predictions still peg its value at less than that of a couple of years ago.
Meanwhile, Disney, Apple, WarnerMedia and NBCUniversal are all planning their dominance over the streaming market, each filling out their platforms with exclusive content and age-old favorites. At this point, I don’t even know if the Stranger Things kids could save Netflix from this nightmare.