By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) stock was trading down 0.3% in Wednesday’s premarket as the streaming giant’s subscriber growth slowed and its second-quarter earnings came below the average estimate.
The company net added 1.54 million users to its streaming platform in the second quarter, a little over one-sixth of the number it added in the same quarter a year ago. That was the time when pandemic-stricken users, stuck at home, wanted to binge watch its bouquet. In North America, it lost a net 430,000 subscribers, a development that some saw as a sign of viewer fatigue.
The company has forecast it will add 3.5 million users in the ongoing quarter. According to Reuters, Wall Street had expected a forecast of 5.5 million.
Netflix still has to achieve that subscriber addition target at a time when movie theaters have resumed operations, a reopened economy is giving people more options for entertainment and competitorson like Disney+ (NYSE:DIS), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and HBO Max are on its heels.
Netflix expects its third-quarter revenue to grow 16% year-on-year to $7.47 billion. It sees net income at $1.15 billion and diluted EPS at $2.55.
The company reported third-quarter earnings per share of $2.97 on revenue of $7.34 billion that came just above expectations. Analysts had forecast an EPS of $3.18 on revenue of $7.32 billion.