The report sent the stock down 25% in the post-closing trading period.
Netflix’s fourth-quarter profit was $1.5 billion, down from $1.7 billion in the previous quarter. Revenue jumped 9.8% to $7.8 billion.
It can’t be overstated how badly this report is for the King of Live Broadcasting now. The company’s stock is down more than 40% year-to-date, and there’s been a lot of anxiety from investors about earnings growth — concerns materialized on Tuesday with Netflix losing not only the bottom line of its own expectations but losing thousands of subscriptions to boot.
What happened?
In its letter to investors, the company said that since launching live broadcasting in 2007, the company has “operated on the firm belief that online, on-demand entertainment will replace linear television,” but added that, in the near term, “we are not making profits as quickly as we would like.” “.
Netflix said the pandemic “blurred the picture by significantly increasing our growth in 2020, leading us to believe that most of our slowing growth in 2021 was due to Covid going forward.”
“In addition to our 222 million paid families, we estimate that Netflix is shared with more than 100 million additional families, including more than 30 million in [United States/Canada] area,” the company said.
Netflix said the withdrawal from Russia cost the company 700,000 subscribers.
The company’s bad report is likely to disrupt the streaming market since many other companies have changed their business strategies to compete with Netflix.
What now?
Netflix told investors Tuesday that it plans to turn the tide by doing what it’s always done: improve the service.
“Our plan is to reaccelerate viewing and revenue growth by continuing to improve all aspects of Netflix — particularly the quality of our programming and recommendations, which our members value most,” the company said.
The company added that it was “doubling up on story development and creative excellence” and that it launched a “Double Like” tool that will allow members to “better express what they really like versus what they simply like.”
Netflix also said it will focus more on “best ways to monetize sharing” in terms of passwords.
“Sharing has likely helped fuel our growth by getting more people to come to and enjoy Netflix. We’ve always tried to make sharing easier within a member’s home, with features like multi-profiles and streaming,” the company said. “While these were very common, they caused confusion about when and how Netflix could be shared with other families.”
“While we won’t be able to monetize all of that right now, we think it’s a huge short-to-medium-term opportunity,” they said.
Despite a massive growth slowdown that has put its strategy into question, Netflix has remained defiant.
“This focus on continuous improvement has served us well for the past 25 years,” Netflix said. “That’s why we’re now the largest subscription streaming service in the world on all the key metrics: paid subscriptions, engagement, revenue, and profits.”
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