Streaming services are making the most out of the numerous lockdowns across the world. With the COVID-19 pandemic, people are spending hours at home binging on their favorite shows. Netflix, one of the primary streaming destinations, gained a lot of new streamers. Most of the international lockdowns started coming into effect by mid-March, just over a month ago. Despite that, Netflix upped its subscriber count to 15.8 million new subscribers in Q1 2020.
The figure was over twice the expected 7.2 million that Netflix had in mind. This is already a 22 percent year-on-year growth for the company. Netflix now has a subscriber base of 182 million worldwide. This also added to the company seeing a quarterly revenue of $5.77 billion versus the expected $5.76 billion.
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However, with the rapid rise comes another issue- the issue of continuity. The Coronavirus lockdowns are temporary and once lifted country by country, Netflix and other streaming services are expecting a strong decline in viewership. “At Netflix, we’re acutely aware that we are fortunate to have a service that is even more meaningful to people confined at home, and which we can operate remotely with minimal disruption in the short to medium term,” reads a letter Netflix sent to shareholders.
“Like other home entertainment services, we’re seeing temporarily higher viewing and increased membership growth. In our case, this is offset by a sharply stronger US dollar, depressing our international revenue, resulting in revenue-as-forecast,” it adds. The company is also taking extra precautions including reducing the various new products it tries.
The lockdowns also mean that productions across the globe can no more shoot new content. As a result, they are stuck with whatever content that was either complete or had made it to post-production. “So, while we’re certainly impacted by the global production pause, we expect to continue to be able to provide a terrific variety of new titles throughout 2020 and 2021,” adds the letter. For now, however, Netflix will likely continue seeing a rise in the number of subscribers and active viewers as the pandemic continues to wreak havoc.
