Netflix drops estimates based on economy
updated 12:55 pm EDT, Mon October 6, 2008
Netflix lowers estimates
Subscriber numbers for Netflix are on a slight decline, the company has announced. The movie rental outfit says that in figures for the third quarter of the year, it recorded only 8.672 million subscribers, below predictions of 8.675 to 8.875 million. Final revenue figures, which will be announced on October 20th, are expected to end up between $343 and $348 million. CFO Barry McCarthy notes that while July subscriber growth was fine, it dropped significantly in August, only to resume growth in September.
The company foremost blames worldwide economic problems, which may have led to people canceling subscriptions or choosing not to join. Netflix is also faced with increasingly stiff competition, particularly from digital services such Amazon's Unbox and the Apple iTunes Store. The company has however announced expanded online streaming options, including Macs, Xbox 360s, and content from Starz.
Interesting
10/06, 01:05pm reply
This makes sense to me. I recently dropped NetFlix, simply because I am trying to cut monthly fixed expenses, and it was an easy cut to make. I suspect they are seeing other people make the same sort of decision.
njfuzzy
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Apr 2001
Oh
10/06, 01:34pm reply
I wonder if the loss in numbers has anything to do with the shoddy service? I believe they have had a couple of major computer system failures or crashes lately resulting in long shipping times, I know personally our ship times can take as long as 4 or 5 days on more than one occasion. However I am looking at getting the ROKU too.
handydan
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Nov 2001
Gee...
10/06, 01:42pm reply
Wasn''t their big system outage back in August? Hardly the sort of press you want to attract new customers. Because of that snafu and other inconsistencies in their service of late, I dropped my subscription in September as soon as my current month ran off.
Bad service=fewer customers. But I'm sure Netflix won't be the last company to say the problem was due instead to a global economic downturn. Much less blame for themselves that way...
Guest
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Nov 1999
weird...
10/06, 01:45pm reply
I have been a Netflix member for over 2 years now and the only issue I had was a bad disk one time.. filled out the online form and got another one within a day or so.
eldarkus
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Feb 2004
my subscription
10/06, 01:50pm reply
is on hold while I move - I will probably cancel if the mac version of the instant movie viewer is not ready in two months.
boomer0127
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jan 2004