Netflix has lost almost 1 million subscribers during the second quarter (Q2) of the year.
The platform lost nearly 970,000 memberships instead of the expected 2 million between April and June. The April-June contraction is by far the largest quarterly subscriber loss in the company’s 25-year history.
Netflix co-CEO Reed Hastings said “It’s tough losing a million subscribers and calling it a success.”
The company lost 1.3 million customers in the United States and Canada in the second quarter, and 770,000 in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. However, the streaming giant got 1.1 million paid subscribers in the Asia-Pacific region in Q2.
Netflix was spared from deeper losses by “Stranger Things,” its most popular science fiction/horror series that debuted in 2016. Stranger Things 4 has been watched for over 1.3 billion hours since part one was released in late May.
“Our challenge and opportunity is to accelerate our revenue and membership growth by continuing to improve our product, content, and marketing as we’ve done for the last 25 years, and to better monetize our big audience,” Netflix said in the report.
The company reported a loss of 200,000 subscribers after its customers surged during the early part of the pandemic. The company laid off around 450 employees.
The company recently announced some initiatives to make up for losses. As part of its lower-cost plans, Netflix has teamed up with Microsoft to offer a cheaper subscription plan to customers that will show adverts.
Netflix is also clamping down on password sharing which is estimated to cost Netflix $6 billion a year. The company is expanding efforts to charge subscribers an extra fee to view content from outside their primary residence. The paid sharing is expected to be offered in 2023.