WHEN THE DIRECT-TO-VIDEO docuseries of the streaming wars is filmed, it’s easy to imagine this week’s disappointing Netflix earnings as a big episode-ending cliffhanger: Hemorrhaging customers for the first time in a decade, the company said Tuesday it plans to lose even more throughout 2022—and the future of the company is at stake.
Netflix lost 200,000 more paying customers than it gained in the first three months of the year, and it predicts it’ll lose another 2 million customers in the second quarter. “Our relatively high household penetration—when including the large number of households sharing accounts—combined with competition, is creating revenue growth headwinds,” the company wrote in a shareholder letter. The loss of 700,000 customers in the last three months in Russia, the result of sanctions, was compounded by an unforecast 600,000-customer loss in the United States and Canada, and another 300,000-customer hit across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Gains in the Asia-Pacific region helped cushion the blow, but still resulted in a net loss in users.
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