Forecast: Netflix to add 10m subs in Q1
April 8, 2020
Netflix will declare its Q1 numbers on April 21st, and the numbers are expected to be impressive.
The market will have to wait for Reed Hastings’ statement to determine how much of the quarter’s growth in subscriptions is down to increased ‘stay at home’ viewing brought on by the Coronavirus pandemic, but a report from Wall Street analysts at Sun Trust says they expect the end result to exceed even Netflix’s own forecasts.
Sun Trust says that a combination of solid ratings winners (not least Tiger King and Ozark) plus the impact of the virus will push global subscriber growth well beyond Netflix expectations of 7 million new subscribers. The analysts say they expect total growth to be better than 9.5 million subscribers.
At the end of December 2019 worldwide subscriber numbers were 167 million of which 67 million were in North America. Its Q4 numbers grew by a net 8.76 million with 8.33 million coming from international markets.
However, there will be plenty of focus on the impact of new rival services, not least Disney Plus in the US as well as the other rival OTT services including HBO Max and NBC Universal’s Peacock.
During Q4 2019 Netflix disappointed the market by ‘only’ adding 420,000 US subs and below its own expectations of 600,000.