When the pandemic hit the world economy last year, most companies registered a lot of loss and it seemed that the global economy was going to face a long-term consequence because of the same reason. Although all of this was true for most of the companies irrespective of the country of origin there were a few markets that gained from the global healthcare crisis and streaming service providers were one of them. In the first quarter of 2020, Netflix gained over 15 million subscribers. As of January 2021, Netflix now has over 200 million subscribers which makes it the biggest over-the-top content platform on the planet.
Netflix raked in over 37 million paid subscribers in 2020 and achieved $25 billion in revenue. Even though the pandemic is now under control, Netflix still expects to add over 6 million subscribers in the first quarter of 2021. Although it is way less than 15 million subscribers that it gained in Q1 2020 but it won’t be rational to compare the subscriber gain in these two quarters since the social and economic conditions are not the same at all.
Netflix is aware of the opportunities that it has right now and it has already started ensuring that it does not let it go by adding more quality content than ever before. However, it will also have to face a lot of competition from other streaming destinations like Disney Plus, Amazon Prime, HBO Max, and others. All these over-the-top content providers will be looking to do everything they can to de-throne Netflix as the king of streaming. As of now, it seems quite unlikely that it would be possible anytime soon but that must be one of their goals.
Despite its impressive rise in recent years, Netflix will still be hesitant about the upcoming years. Since it gained so many subscribers all at once, the gain in subscribers in the future won’t be nearly as big. But as of now Netflix still has a great chance of doing something about its competition. Disney Plus does not have much original content while HBO Max is still struggling with a lot of problems. Netflix can bury its competition and make the subscriber gap between all of its competitors high enough that it can ensure its reign at the top at least in this decade.
The decade is uncertain but there are also a lot of opportunities. Netflix will have to keep providing quality content to remain on the top while the others will look to dethrone it. The consumers are likely to gain from the competition as these over-the-top content providers look to become the best.
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