Published on : 05/05/2022 – 11:49
Netflix shareholders have filed a complaint against the streaming platform which they accuse of having deceived them about the decline in the number of subscribers to the service. A news that brought down the price of the title.
The Californian group made statements “ false and/or misleading and withheld certain information, they believe, according to a statement released on Tuesday. Investors criticize Netflix in particular for not having said that ” subscriber acquisition growth was slowing due to, among other things, account sharing among multiple customers and increased competition from other streaming services ».
Netflix announced on April 19 that it had lost 200,000 subscribers worldwide in the first quarter compared to the end of 2021, a first in more than ten years. The stock price fell more than 35%, to end at $226.19 on April 20 “, note the lawyers in charge of the class action.
Prevent credential sharing
The streaming giant, which expects to lose even more subscribers in the spring, has planned to tighten the screw on the side of the sharing of identifiers and passwords, which allow many people not to pay for access. to the platform.
It had already announced, in March, that it was conducting tests in Chile, Costa Rica and Peru to charge its customers for adding additional accounts to their profile.
Subscriber losses linked to the war in Ukraine
But in its first quarter forecast, Netflix had expected to gain an additional 2.5 million subscribers, and analysts were expecting even more, hence the shock of the loss. It was partly caused by the suspension of service in Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, which resulted in a net loss of 700,000 subscribers. ” Without this impact, we would have had 500,000 additional subscriptions compared to last quarter, Netflix clarified on April 19.
In all, the platform has 221.64 million subscriptions. She regularly mentions during the quarterly results the competition of other services, but also that of indirect competitors, applications like TikTok at video games.
(With AFP)