Netflix Loses Subscribers, Shares Plunge
Netflix shares plunged more than 20 percent in after-hours trading Monday after it posted third-quarter customer losses worse than expected following a failed effort to separate its DVD shipping business from its streaming service.
Roughly 800,000 subscribers left in the third quarter, with the company ending with 23.8 million US members for the quarter. It was a bigger decline than the company previously predicted.
It seems Netflix was not able to maintain subscribers after its price increase and aborted plan to separate streaming and DVD services. The company projected it would lose money for a few quarters due to an expansion in the UK and Ireland. That will delay further expansion until profitability is restored.
“Pausing is a good thing from an investor standpoint,” Chief Executive Officer Reed Hasting said in an interview with Bloomberg. “We are going to pause and restore our global profitability.”
There was better news abroad for Netflix, adding more than 500,000 customers in Canada and Latin America, bringing its foreign total to 1.51 million.
However investors expected better, as the stock fell to $87 in extended trading after results were announced.