Netflix Reaches Nearly 222 Million Subscribers, But Stock Price Falls -- Here's Why

gamespot.com:

Netflix's latest earnings report has arrived, showing that Netflix now has 221.84 million subscribers globally, up from 203.66 million during the same period last year. Despite the growth in paid subscribers, Netflix's stock price tumbled, and there is a likely reason for that.

Netflix added 8.3 million paid subscribers during the quarter, but that figure was slightly below the 8.5 million paid subscriber additions that it projected. This might have spooked investors, but that's not all. Netflix also announced that it added 18 million total new paid subscribers globally in 2021, which was down sharply from the 37 million that signed up for Netflix in 2020. Of course, 2020 is a difficult year to compare to for Netflix and other entertainment companies given the pandemic.

«We slightly over-forecasted paid net adds in Q4,» Netflix said in its news release.

For the current quarter, Netflix is projecting it will add 2.5 million new subscribers, compared to 4 million during the same quarter last year. Again, this slower growth is due in part to the impact of the pandemic. «While retention and engagement remain healthy, acquisition growth has not yet re-accelerated to pre-Covid levels. We think this may be due to several factors including the ongoing Covid overhang and macro-economic hardship in several parts of the world like LATAM,» Netflix said.

In other Netflix news, the company has teased what's next for its plans in the video game space, while it also said Squid Game is absolutely returning for a new season to set up a new Squid Game universe.