I reported yesterday about Netflix's first decrease in subscribers in more than a decade, and suggested some retail lessons that could be gleaned from the shift in the company's fortunes. Well, it got worse - yesterday, Netflix's stock dropped 35 percent, instantly reducing its market cap by $50 billion.
Ouch.
I think there are some additional lessons to be learned from Netflix's current and future prospects, about having what it takes to survive and playing competitive musical chairs.
One additional note: After I recorded this FaceTime video, the news broke in Variety that "worldwide, HBO Max and HBO added 3.0 million subscribers sequentially (and 12.8 million subscribers year over year) to end Q1 with 76.8 million total. That included 48.6 million domestic HBO Max and HBO subscribers, up 1.8 million from the prior quarter. The 3 million quarterly net gain for HBO Max/HBO matched that in the year-earlier period.
"The growth for HBO Max/HBO stands in contrast to Netflix’s Q1 results reported earlier this week — whose subscriber growth slammed into a wall, missing expectations with a surprise loss of 200,000 subs."
So the Netflix issue may, in fact, be Netflix … though the issue is one that can affect any streaming service and, in fact, any retailer.
