Netflix sinks on sluggish subscriptions.
Expectations were unable to match results; 2.7 million customers added in quarter
Netflix, the streaming juggernaut that has upended the entertainment industry, showed signs of vulnerability Wednesday when it significantly undershot the number of customers it had expected to sign up for the second quarter.
The company said it had added 2.7 million subscribers worldwide for the three months ending in June, well short of the 5 million that investors were expecting.
It also said it had lost 126,000 paid subscribers in the United States during the period, the first time it has shed domestic customers since it started putting out original programming seven years ago.
Netflix’s stock fell more than 10% after the market closed, a drop of more than $17 billion in market value.
The second quarter is typically the company’s weakest period, but its performance this time was unusually poor. At the start of the quarter, Netflix announced that it was raising prices by anywhere from 13% to 18%, depending on the subscription plan. In its statement on its
second-quarter earnings, the company acknowledged that the higher rates had something to do with its failure to meet expectations.
Netflix decided to charge more at least partly because it burns a lot of cash, much of it borrowed, and spends wildly on Hollywood talent. Last year, the company
signed Ryan Murphy, the prolific producer behind “Glee” and the anthology series “American Crime Story” and “American Horror Story,” to a fiveyear deal said to be worth nearly $300 million.
After wooing him away from 21st Century Fox, Netflix signed another name producer, Shonda Rhimes, the creator of ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy,” away from The Walt Disney Co., giving her a nine-figure deal.