Netflix has been leading the streaming scene, and its ever increasing user base has put the company in a sweet spot. As per the latest stats, Netflix has doubled its subscribers base in the US in the past five years, and now it has more subscribers than the cable TV. Yes, the number of cord cutters is increasing, and this is actually one of the reasons why large cable tv networks are bullish when it comes investing in their own streaming service.
Netflix claims that it has 50.85 million subscribers as opposed to the 48.61 million subscribers from the country’s largest cable company (48.61 million). Netflix announcement was a part of its recent quarterly earnings report, and the cable numbers were inferred from the Leichtman Research Group. The Cable subscribers numbers include the subscriber base of the top six U.S cable companies, a group led by Comcast at 22.5 million followed by Charter Communications (17.1 million).
The Leichtman Research further dwells on the fact that the top cable companies are losing more than 100,000 total subscribers in the recent fiscal quarters while the Netflix is said to have added 1.4-Million subscribers in the same time frame. According to forecasts from Netflix, the numbers are set to grow further and will reach 51.5 million when the company is expected to report it’s earning the next month.
The story is no different for Netflix in other countries including India, despite being one of the highly priced streaming services Netflix is still growing across the 190 countries. In fact the next month Netflix is expected to reach 100 million subscribers globally. The streaming service has been coming up with great local contents and especially in the Indian context, Netflix has a pretty exhaustive catalogue across various genres. That being said Netflix’s Numero Uno position is challenged by Amazon, Hulu and others who are picking up pace and are growing at a rapid pace. It would be interesting to see how traditional cable companies will repackage themselves and challenge Netflix.