New Delhi: Adding 8.3 million new subscribers to its platform last year, Netflix fell a little short of its target of net subscriber addition of 8.5 million for the year 2021.
In its shareholder letter issued in the last quarter, the digital giant had already hinted at its underperformance for the year, as compared to the growth in net subscriber addition seen between 2017-2020.
Compared to 2020, when the platform had gained 37 million paying subscribers, Netflix could only end the year 2021 with a total of 18.2 million new subscribers.
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Most of these new subscribers added by the end of the year are reportedly from out of North America.
In terms of annual revenue, it rose to $7.7 billion in the fourth quarter from 16%, as compared to 2020. Also, disapproving the analysts’s expectations the digital giant’s net income was $607 million or $1.33 per diluted share.
Also, compared with $2.76 billion in 2020, the net income was was $5.1 billion in 2021.
In the letter issued by the streaming giant to its shareholders on Thursday, the company acknowledged, “added competition from other streaming services may be affecting (Netflix’s) marginal growth”.
“Consumers have always had many choices when it comes to their entertainment time — competition that has only intensified over the last 24 months as entertainment companies all around the world develop their own streaming offering”.
“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”, the letter read.
