James Delahunty
20 Apr 2021 23:20
The COVID-19 pandemic can be blamed for both good news and bad news at Netflix!
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it confined most of us to our homes and dramatically increased our demand for online and streaming media. Netflix rode a wave of soaring subscriptions as a bored public sought an escape from the constant reminder of our predicament.
In 2020, Netflix added a whopping 36.5 million new subscribers globally which was easily its best year for subscriber growth. By contrast, 2019 had seen a decline in growth from 28.6 million to 27.8 million the previous year.
While more users were signing on to the service, Netflix was hit by the same production problems as others in the industry. Filming of its popular TV shows and much of its new movies and other content ground to a halt as COVID-19 restrictions also kept directors, producers, actors, studio engineers, writers, and everyone else required for production at home.
In the first quarter of 2021, Netflix recorded just shy of 4 million new subscribers, down dramatically from over 15 million for the same period a year earlier. Worse, it warned shareholders that it only expects to add just 1 million new subscribers in Q2.
The streaming giant attributes the dramatically cut in subscriber growth to the delay of new content going to the service - a delay caused by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It is now looking to new seasons of popular shows like The Witcher and Money Heist to accelerate subscriber growth in the second half of 2021.
Netflix counts more than 207 million subscribers globally.