Hours after Netflix announced it lost subscribers for the first time, the stock for the streaming giant had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day at market. Dropping over 10 points per share down to $325.21 by the end of trading Thursday, Netflix lost upwards of $17 billion in market value. That’s not a typo — that’s billion, not million. Netflix just essentially lost $17 billion dollars the very first time it lost subscribers.
Videos by ComicBook.com
If you’re wondering how much money that is exactly, TheWrap points out that two other streaming giants in Viacom and Roku are currently valued at $12.5b and $12.4b, respectively. Despite its massive drop — the single largest single-day drop in the history of the company, in fact — Netflix is still worth at least $142b.
Enders Analysis analyst Tom Harring tells TheWrap despite being concerning, the drop is likely just an anomaly at this point.
“In all likelihood there will be growth in the current quarter,” Harrington points out. “With big returning original shows like ‘Stranger Things,’ ‘Orange Is the New Black,’ ‘Money Heist’ and ‘Mindhunter’ — something that “usually results in a boost.”
In its letter to shareholders yesterday, the company suggested the exodus of consumers was a direct result of rising prices and weaker content offerings in the first quarter of their fiscal year.
“Our missed forecast was across all regions, but slightly more so in regions with price increases,” the company said, “believe competition was a factor since there wasn’t a material change in the competitive landscape during Q2, and competitive intensity and our penetration is varied across regions (while our over-forecast was in every region). Rather, we think Q2’s content slate drove less growth in paid net adds than we anticipated. Additionally, Q1 was so large for us (9.6m net adds), there may have been more pull-forward effect than we realized. In prior quarters with over-forecasts, we’ve found that the underlying long-term growth was not affected and staying focused on the fundamentals of our business served us well.”
What’s your favorite Netflix original? Share your thoughts in the comments below or by tweeting me at @AdamBarnhardt!
