Slower growth than expected for Netflix

“Lower growth because of slightly higher prices”

Netflix has told its shareholders in an open letter that it has attracted 3 million new customers in the past quarter, 1 million from the United States. That number is lower than expected, but the company is quick to point out that it had “under-forecasted membership growth” for the “prior three quarters”. Currently, Netflix has over 53 million subscribers and the goal is to add another 4 million new subscribers over the next quarter. 

“As best we can tell, the primary cause [for the lower quarterly number] is the slightly higher prices we now have compared to a year ago”, Netflix said. Nevertheless, shareholders will probably not complain as the higher prices have increased the company’s turnover nearly 40 % to 1.2 billion dollars. Net profit reached 59 million dollars, way more than the 32 million dollars from 2013’s third quarter.

“Belgians surf faster than Dutch people”

Netflix launched in several European countries in September, but it has not revealed its number of subscribers in Belgium and the Netherlands. According to a Dutch poll however, over 1 million Dutch people already use Netflix.

The company did also divulge that Belgium and the Netherlands are in the top 5 of countries with the fastest internet, which is important to guarantee stream quality. Belgium is number two, the Netherlands is number three and Switzerland is number one.