More than £12billion was wiped off the value of Netflix last night after fewer customers joined the streaming service over the summer.
The company added 2.2m paid subscribers around the world in the three months to the end of September as it released Enola Holmes, The Devil All the Time and Emily in Paris.
That was the weakest growth rate in four years and compared with the 15.8m paying customers it gained between January and March as the Covid-19 pandemic forced people to stay home.
French connection: Emily in Paris is the streaming giant’s latest hit show. But it was not enough to reverse the downturn in the number of new subscribers
Netflix shares fell almost 7 per cent – wiping £12.3billion off the value of the company.
However, it was still worth more than £160billion having seen its shares rise more than 50 per cent this year.
Elsewhere on Wall Street, Snap shares surged more than a third higher after the Snapchat messaging app owner posted better-than-expected figures as more people signed up to chat with friends and family during the pandemic.
The results boosted shares in Facebook and image sharing company Pinterest. Netflix ended the third quarter with 195.2m global streaming customers.
‘Next time we get together, we should be over 200m members,’ co-chief executive Reed Hastings told analysts.
Netflix forecast in the fourth quarter it would bring in 6m new subscribers around the globe, short of the 6.51m that analysts expected.
It is trying to win customers and fend off competition as viewers embrace online entertainment.
Netflix acknowledged that competition was increasing as studios across Hollywood from Walt Disney to AT&T’s WarnerMedia have restructured to compete more directly for video subscribers.
Sophie Lund-Yates, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: ‘Subscriber growth was always going to stall this quarter, but it’s stuttered more than expected.’
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