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<br>By Eva Mathews and Nivedita Balu<br> <br>April 20 (Reuters) – Netflix Inc shares lost over a third of their value on Wednesday after the company reported its first drop in subscribers in a decade, leaving Wall Street questioning its growth in the face of fierce competition and post-pandemic viewer fatigue.<br> <br>The streaming pioneer’s shares fell 37% to $220.40 and were headed for their worst day in nearly 18 years if the losses hold.
More than a dozen analysts rushed to temper their views on a stock that has been a red-hot market performer in the past few years.<br> <br>”Netflix is a poster child for what happens to growth companies when they lose their growth,” said Kim Forrest, chief investment officer at Bokeh Capital Partners in Pittsburgh.<br> <br>”People buy growth companies because they think their cash flow is going to grow so they’re paying ahead for anticipating that. When a stock like this tumbles, people looking for growth back away quickly.”<br> <br>Brokerage J.P.Morgan made the most aggressive move by halving its price target to $305 – well below the stock’s median Wall Street target of $400.<br> <br>”Near-term visibility is limited … and there’s not much to get excited about over the next few months beyond the new, much lower stock price,” J.P.
Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth said.<br> <br>Anmuth also slashed his estimate for 2022 net subscriber additions by half to 8 million.<br> <br>The share slump could erase the stock’s gain over the past two years, when its business thrived as new customers joined its platform to ride out the lockdowns.<br> <br>In an effort to calm nerves, company executives told analysts on Tuesday they were looking to offer an advertisement-based tier over the next year or two and promised a crackdown on password sharing – a long-running problem for the service.<br> <br>”We’ve got the full kitchen sink … That might not be enough,” said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.<br> <br>Netflix’s rivals already have ad-driven versions or are considering one – HBO Max offers an ad-supported subscription, while Disney+ recently said it would launch an ad-based tier.<br> <br>”We’re left with a business in transition. Subscribers have slowed and we struggle to see a return to a pre-COVID net add cadence,” Piper Sandler analyst Thomas Champion said in a note.<br> <br>Demand for fresh and engaging content is also increasing, forcing Netflix and others to think about bigger budgets for production even as costs increase in an inflationary environment.<br> <br>Netflix’s bigger problem was consumers cancelling their subscription due to inflation and post-pandemic user fatigue, than its profitability or business model, said Peter Garnry, ngentot pramugari head of equity strategy at Saxo Bank.<br> <br>For the second quarter, Netflix has lined up new seasons of popular shows ‘Ozark’, ‘Stranger Things’ and ‘Grace and Frankie’.<br> <br>Needham, however, took a divergent view.
The brokerage upgraded its rating on the stock to “hold” from “underperform”, encouraged by the company’s plans to add a low-priced advertising tier.<br> <br>(Reporting by Nivedita Balu, Eva Mathews and Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Sweta Singh, Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Anil D’Silva)<br>
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