Netflix is predicted to lose a further 200,000 UK subscribers this year as the cost of living crisis continues to bite and competition among streaming services hots up.
Research suggests the fall will follow expected losses of around 500,000 customers in the UK in 2022, The Guardian reports.
The company, which has reportedly cut staff and become more disciplined with its $17bn (£14bn) annual content budget, will have seen its UK user base drop from 14.2 million to 13.7 million in 2022, according to research firm Ampere Analysis. And the UK’s most popular service is predicted to be the only major streamer to have lost subscribers in 2022.
In 2021, the company gained 800,000 subscribers, its lowest since launching in the UK in 2012, as consumers approached “peak Netflix”. The launch of Lord of the Rings spin-off The Rings of Power, the world’s most expensive TV show with the first series costing $465m (£336m), helped rival Amazon’s Prime Video grow its UK base from just over 12m to 12.3m accounts in 2022.
The research says that the only major service to maintain significant momentum is Disney+, launched in the UK in early 2020, which will report market-leading growth of 1.4 million subscribers to take its UK base to six million this year.
Globally, the news is better for Netflix, which bounced back to growth in the third quarter of 2022 by adding a better-than-expected 2.4 million subscribers. This has been attributed to the success of series including Dahmer and Stranger Things 4, while It ended the year with the highly anticipated release of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.
Ampere Analysis says the dire state of the UK economy means the subscriber recovery will take significantly longer here.
“Given the wider economic pressures the UK is facing I’m not expecting Netflix to go back to growth in 2023,” says Richard Broughton, director at Ampere Analysis. “Our base assumption is Netflix moves back into growth with the UK economy, which is likely to be 2024.”
In November, Netflix launched its ad-supported subscription offer in the UK and around a dozen other markets – priced at £4.99 a month, £2 less than its current cheapest option.
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