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Sebasten Lizarraga

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Aug 2, 2024, 6:03:01 AM8/2/24
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The company added nearly 8.8 million worldwide subscribers during the July-September period, more than tripling the number gained during the same time last year when Netflix was scrambling to recover from a downturn in customers during the first half last year. The increase left Netflix with about 247 million worldwide subscribers, well above the 243.8 million projected by analysts surveyed by FactSet Research.

The company's stock price soared more than 12% in extended trading after the latest quarterly numbers came out. Netflix shares have increased by about 30% so far this year amid mounting evidence its video streaming service is faring better than most in a crowded fielded of competitors that is testing the financial limits of many households.

Netflix has picked up more than 16 million subscribers through the first nine months of the year, already eclipsing the 8.9 million subscribers that it added all of last year. But it's still a fraction of the more than 36 million additional subscribers that Netflix attracted in 2020 when the pandemic turned into a gold mine for the service at a time when people were looking for ways to stay entertained while tethered to home.

This year's subscriber inroads have been made despite entertainment labor strife centered in part on writers' and actors' complaints about unfairly low payments doled out by video streaming services such as Netflix. The company has been able to withstand the recently settled writers' strike and ongoing actors strike by drawing upon a backlog of already finished TV series and movies in the U.S., as well as productions made in international markets unaffected by the labor disputes.

"We are incredibly pleased with how it has been going," Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters said when asked about the password-sharing crackdown during a Wednesday video conference call. He predicted more subscriber gains will accrue from the crackdown for at least several more quarters as Netflix confronts more "borrower households" about watching the service's programming without paying for it.

The apparent success of the password-sharing crackdown could now free management to focus on other ways to bring in more revenue, such as a low-priced option that includes advertising introduced a year ago.

Netflix's decision to open its service up to commercials hasn't been a big boon yet. But Harding Loevner analyst Uday Cheruvu said he believes that will change as advertisers realize that the personal information the company has gleaned from viewers' entertainment tastes can help target their commercials at consumers most likely to buy their products in the same way internet powerhouses such as Google and Facebook have been doing for years. Peters said during the video conference call that Netflix is already working with is ad partner, Microsoft, to target its commercials more precisely.

"I think the advertising potential of Netflix is underappreciated," Cheruvu said. "The audience engagement with the video advertising there could be multiple times stronger than a social media platform."

In a shareholder letter, Netflix said roughly 30% of its incoming subscribers are opting for the $7 plan with commercials, growth that is likely to attract more spending from advertisers. The higher prices for Netflix's premium plans also seems likely to divert more subscribers into the ad-supported option.

"The 'streamflation' era is upon us, and consumers should expect to be hit with price hikes, password sharing limits, and enticed with ad supported options," said Scott Purdy, U.S. media leader for KPMG.

You couldn't be more wrong on this, T-Mobile can keep giving it customers what they promised them when they signed up. They'll just have to eat the cost or make a new deal with Netflix. The benefit equates to $15.49 of value for the current one, now it's going to equate to $6.99, how is that not a Downgrade? I to, will be looking at other carriers and plans.

This is unfortunate but I would probably do the same if I was T-Mobile. It will increase profit margins and force people to pay more to get back into the higher tier they were in with Netflix. Although I am not happy about it, it's actually good teamwork between the companies. Personally, I may downgrade my plan and even consider other carriers. In the end I will probably have to choose to either ditch Netflix completely in the very unlikely instance that it reduces plan cost or pay the difference to avoid ads. However, I doubt that T-Mobile will allow the option of my plan without the Netflix with ads for a reduced cost. Let's not pretend that anything is really free. There would be no agreement between T-Mobile and Netflix if it wasn't mutually beneficial and you pay for it even if it isn't shown as a line item.

I'm sorry but if people realized it's actually costing you more do you have T-Mobile on us for Netflix or even Paramount then they wouldn't use those benefits. Because I was grandfathered in under a plan that they no longer have anymore and it was cheaper for me to pay out of pocket for Paramount and Netflix and tell my kids wanted smart watches so then I had to upgrade my plan to the magenta which almost doubled my phone bill so now I'm paying almost $400 a month instead of $150 because of the change in the plans and the additional lines for the smart watches. But also with that we get unlimited data which is the best benefit that is if it would actually work all the time. And also every time I went into upgrade my phones they totally screwed up my account so bad it took me months to get it fixed so when I do decide to upgrade phones again I will be switching from T-Mobile and I've been with them for 13 years. I thought the whole thing would be coming 5G was things worth just get better and possibly a little cheaper but it's only gotten worse and more expensive.

I called in for the third time about this change and asked for a Supervisor to discuss it. I finally got through to a Supervisor, who looked up my account and she said that as I am on the Magenta Max 55+ with 3 lines, my Netflix service is grandfathered in and will not be changed to the one with ads. I asked her to confirm and she put me on hold, came back a couple minutes later and confirmed no change to my Netflix. As this is different from what I was told the last 2 times I called, I supposed I will see what happens over the next day or two when the change is taking place.

Jonathan Friedland, the new vice president of global corporate communications who had joined Netflix just a few months earlier, asked whether customers on tight incomes might object to the price hike, according to people at Hastings' meeting. Hastings argued that Netflix was a great bargain. He said he knew that some customers would complain but that the number would be small and the anger would quickly fade.

Hastings was wrong. The price hike and the later, aborted attempt to spin off the company's DVD operations enraged Netflix customers. The company lost 800,000 subscribers, its stock price dropped 77 percent in four months, and management's reputation was battered. Hastings went from Fortune magazine's Businessperson of the Year to the target of Saturday Night Live satire.

To Hastings' credit, what he wanted to do made sense. The DVD's best days are behind it. Video streamed via the Internet is slowly replacing the physical disc, and betting a business on a dying product is never a great idea. So Hastings wanted to get ahead of the curve and focus on streaming, to disrupt his own business before someone else did it for him. It was aggressive, far-sighted, and very much in character.

Hastings is someone who knows a thing or two about disrupting businesses. Netflix, after all, is the company that drove the giants of video rental out of the sector with a simple premise: A simple-to-use Web site that delivers DVDs right to your doorstep. Best of all: No late fees. He became one of those executives with the "visionary" label, who can predict where a market is going before it happens, and was asked to join the board of directors of two of the most important companies in tech, Microsoft and Facebook.

Leading up to the first anniversary of the Netflix meltdown, CNET interviewed former and current Netflix employees to find out how a series of missteps turned into a lost year, and whether it has rebounded from those self-inflicted wounds. Most asked to remain anonymous. Netflix declined to comment for this story.

So how did Hastings stumble? Just prior to the attempt to remake Netflix into a streaming-video distributor, there was turmoil in the company's executive offices. Several of Hastings' most trusted lieutenants were no longer as influential with the CEO. Others had left and their replacements did not yet have the clout to convince Hastings he was being too aggressive for a customer base that by 2011 could hardly have been considered on the bleeding edge of consumer tech.

When customers and the press pushed back, the Netflix response was haphazard, culminating with an amateurish, confusing YouTube video heralding the coming of Qwikster, the spinoff that was supposed to be a life raft for Netflix's DVD operations. The Qwikster plan was scuttled three weeks after it was announced.

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