Netflix fails to increase subscriber count, confirms plans to jump into gaming



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The streaming service said it had 209 million subscribers globally after adding just over one million subscribers in the second quarter of 2021. That exceeded the company’s expectations for the quarter, even if it was a generally low bar.

Still, Netflix’s stock was immediately hit in after-hours trading, with its guidance for the third quarter weaker than the 5.5 million subscribers expected by analysts. Netflix (NFLX) said it projected growth of 3.5 million for the next quarter.

The company’s shares fell as much as 3% after hours before leveling off.

Netflix’s profit in the second quarter of this year was $ 1.3 billion, down from $ 720 million in the previous year’s quarter. Its turnover jumped 19% to $ 7.3 billion.

Notably, approximately 430,000 subscribers in the United States and Canada abandoned their Netflix subscriptions in the second quarter. The society still has around 74 million members in these countries.

“The pandemic has created unusual instability in our growth and skews year-to-year comparisons as acquisition and engagement per member household has increased in the early months of Covid,” the company said. in a letter to investors on Tuesday.

The company added that it “is confident that as we constantly improve our service to better satisfy our members, this will lead to continued growth of our member base.”

Netflix tries to beat its competition by adding video games
One way Netflix plans to appeal to its members better: video games.

The company confirmed on Tuesday that it was in the “early stages” of expanding into games.

“We see gaming as another new category of content for us, similar to our expansion into original films, animation and unscripted television,” the company said.

The games will become part of a member’s regular subscription “at no additional charge similar to movies and series” and initially will be “primarily focused on games for mobile devices”.

With two quarters of less than spectacular subscriber growth, entering the gaming world makes sense for the streaming king.

Video games are a multi-billion dollar business, and offering games could help diversify Netflix’s offerings. It could also attract new users, which in turn could help it compete with competitors like Disney (Dis).

“We are more excited than ever about our film and TV series offering and expect a long track of increasing investment and growth in all of our existing content categories,” the company said. “But since we’re almost a decade into our push into original programming, we think now is the time to learn more about how our members enjoy games.”

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