Moussa Nao, edited by Thibault Nadal 06:13, April 23, 2022

The Californian company deplores the loss of 200,000 subscribers since January 2022 and plummets in the stock market by 35% on Wall Street.

Although Netflix explains this drop by the suspension of its service in Russia since the war in Ukraine, the arrival of strong competition, as well as the increase in prices are other reasons which explain this drop.

After a phenomenal increase in its number of subscriptions during the Covid-19 pandemic, the streaming giant had 221.6 million subscribers worldwide.

Today, Netflix is ​​in great difficulty, especially since the start of the war in Ukraine which forced the platform to do without Russia, i.e. 700,000 subscribers, although the reasons are deeper.

Tough competition

This loss is also explained by the sharp increase in competition in the video streaming market between OCS, Disney +, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.

It is therefore difficult for users to remain faithful to a single platform, especially since the price of the Netflix subscription is added to this, which increased by 13% last August.

By taking these parameters into account, subscribers are gradually turning away from the Californian giant.

"Frankly I understand people who unsubscribe, I totally understand because it's already expensive and there are plenty of platforms that offer more diversified content. In the end, it's cheaper so the choice is quickly made", exclaims Océane, Netflix user.

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The sharing of subscription codes targeted

To explain this drop, Netflix blames the "illicit" sharing of subscription codes between users, even if in its early days it did not bother them to make themselves known.

"They say that there are 100 million households that watch Netflix without paying. And they even specify this figure since in the United States and Canada where there are today approximately 75 million subscribers, Netflix estimates that there are around 30 million who watch without paying”, explains Pascal Lechevallier, media specialist.

To overcome this problem, the company wants to increase the price of the subscription for anyone who shares its codes.

But this measure is far from reassuring investors who are preparing for a leak of two million additional subscribers next quarter.