Netflix Sheds 200,000 Subs in Q1

Netflix’s global subscriber base fell from 221.84 million in Q4 last year to 221.64 million in Q1 2022, while year-on-year revenue growth slipped to 9.8 percent.

Revenues at the company in Q1 were $7.9 billion, with a net income of $1.6 billion. Netflix is projecting further subs losses in Q2, forecasting a global base of 219.64 million customers.

“Streaming is winning over linear, as we predicted, and Netflix titles are very popular globally,” the streaming giant said in its letter to shareholders. “However, our relatively high household penetration—when including the large number of households sharing accounts—combined with competition, is creating revenue growth headwinds. The big Covid boost to streaming obscured the picture until recently. While we work to reaccelerate our revenue growth—through improvements to our service and more effective monetization of multi-household sharing—we’ll be holding our operating margin at around 20 percent.”

Netflix estimates that more than 100 million additional homes are accessing its service via shared passwords, including more than 30 million in the U.S. and Canada. It is looking at options to monetize sharing, such as a program in three Latin American markets that introduced paid sharing features. Netflix is also looking to keep driving its international subs.

UCAN (U.S. and Canada) paid memberships fell to 74.6 million in Q1. In EMEA, the platform’s base fell to 73.7 million paid customers. LatAm subs were down to 39.6 million. AsiaPac, meanwhile, added 1.1 million customers to reach 33.7 million.