Ted Sarandos recently reported in an interview about Netflix’s degrading rate of subscriptions.
Netflix co-CEO, Ted Sarandos in a recent interview with the French newspaper Le Journal du Deimanche argues that there is a slowdown in Netflix subscriptions. This is due to multiple factors such as supply chain constraints, drop in smart TV sales, inflation, and the loss of subscribers due to the Russia-Ukraine war crisis.
“Every customer now asks themselves the question of the value of a subscription in relation to its cost,” said Sarandos. Netflix lost over 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of this year.
He said that there was some content that had increased audience records to a very high extent. For example, movies like Don’t Look Up and Red Notice or the phenomenon series Squid Games reached the threshold of 1 billion hours of viewing upon their release.
to compensate for the drop in subscribers, which now sits at 222 million worldwide. Netflix has laid off roughly 450 employees since May. This signals a cost-reduction plan and that the streamer has adjusted to slower growth relative to its projections. Sarandos also said that Netflix will reach $17.3 billion this year without limiting its expenditure on content production.
Another strategy for boosting revenue is to introduce ads. Sarandos confirmed the global introduction of ads after months of speculation at the Cannes Lions advertising conference in June. He told Le Journal du Deimanche that ads would attract more subscribers.
Additionally, the streamer continues to crackdown on shared passwords and is “testing a new billing system for additional profiles not living under the same roof.” He said about 100 million people use Netflix without paying.
