The COVID-19 pandemic took over the entire world last year and after lockdowns were imposed for everyone, people simply had nothing better to do but stay at home. Netflix certainly saw a lot of profit from this as it saw a huge spike in subscribers as a result of the pandemic.
Now it seems the pandemic boom for Netflix might just be over for good. According to a report by The Guardian, the boom that Netflix had previously experienced has decreased considerably in the first several months of 2021.
Initial estimates suggested that the first quarter of the financial year would bring in roughly 6 million new subscribers, but ultimately only 4 million new subscribers signed up. This is a significantly smaller number compared to the 8 million subscribers that signed up in the final months of 2020.
Netflix currently expects that only 1 million subscribers will be added this quarter, which will be its slowest growth on record. Netflix has cited the pandemic and its direct impact on the production of new programs and films as a reason for the slow growth.
Netflix also double down on the fact that increased competition from other providers such as Disney+ and Amazon Prime were not responsible for the slow growth either. We will have to see if Netflix will see better growth by the end of the year as there is hope production for more shows and movies might be likely now.