Netflix Reaches Nearly 183 Million Global Subscribers in Q1 2020 Earnings Report

While the coronavirus has caused many businesses to halt, Netflix has definitely benefited from all the people staying at home. The streaming giant announced in their Q1 2020 report today that they reached 182.86 million global subscribers.

“At Netflix, we’re acutely aware that we are fortunate to have a service that is even more meaningful to people confined at home, and which we can operate remotely with minimal disruption in the short to medium term,” Netflix stated in their letter to shareholders. “Like other home entertainment services, we’re seeing temporarily higher viewing and increased membership growth. In our case, this is offset by a sharply stronger U.S. dollar, depressing our international revenue, resulting in revenue-as-forecast. We expect viewing to decline and membership growth to decelerate as home confinement ends, which we hope is soon.”

Netflix added 15.77 million subscribers since their Q4 2019 earnings report back in January when they reported that they reached 167.09 million global subscribers with 61 million in the U.S.

In their letter to shareholders, Netflix also detailed the challenges the company has had to face during the coronavirus pandemic, including disruption to TV series and movie production.

“When it comes to production, almost all filming has now been stopped globally, with the exception of a
few countries like Korea and Iceland,” the letter stated. “This has been devastating for millions of workers in the TV and film industry.”

Though Netflix remains the largest streamer, Disney+ has gained major traction since its launch last November and has proven to be a viable competitor. Earlier this month, the streaming service announced they surpassed 50 million paid subscribers, following their launch in India and eight Western European countries. Of the 50 million subscribers, approximately eight million of those come from their existing Hotstar service in India, which was rebranded Disney+ Hotstar for their April 3 launch.

Amazon, which doesn’t reveal its subscriber numbers, was reported to be standing at 100 million subscribers with 26 million U.S. customers streaming videos, according to a report by Reuters.