While there is a lot of competition in the streaming space these days, Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) still rules the roost. After hitting an all-ti
While there is a lot of competition in the streaming space these days, Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) still rules the roost. After hitting an all-time high stock price during the pandemic, the future looks rosy for the company.
Fighting off increasing competition
In recent years, every major media company seemingly launched their own on-demand streaming services.
Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) has its Prime Video offering, with a selection of popular films and movies, including original content. While it technically has 150 million subscribers, this streaming service comes free with the popular Amazon Prime membership.
Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has its own streaming service through Apple TV but it hasn’t been able to rival Netflix as of yet with its 33 million subscribers.
The Disney (NYSE: DIS) streaming service is aiming to be a major rival for the likes of Netflix. It launched in the U.S. in November and it saw decent success off the bat. The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic coincided with the launch of Disney+ in Europe, which was ideal for gaining subscribers quickly post-launch. Hulu is another streaming service for popular television shows and has subscriber numbers of about 30 million. This service is to be offered as part of a Disney+ bundle in the future.
Offering a free trial to people, it certainly has seen a lot of rapid progress with more than 50 million people signing up in only five months. However, the company as a whole has been hit hard by the closure of movie theaters, content studios and all its theme parks across the world. This has seen its stock price drop and stagnate for some time.
Minimal coronavirus impact
While the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has significantly hindered most industries and businesses, Netflix has seen its share price hit all-time highs. With the company’s dominance in the global streaming market, it has been enjoying significant success as people have to stay at home and want to binge watch the best shows and movies out there.
While the overall market has seen significant drops, Netflix has experienced stock price growth of more than 33% so far in 2020. New users are being driven to the service and the overall appeal of on-demand streaming is becoming greater by the day. While content production is affecting all studios, Netflix has an impressive library to keep people entertained for years.
Growth opportunity
Despite increasing competition in the streaming market, Netflix is firmly cemented at the top. It is one of the more spectacular growth stories in recent history, having grown from a small mail-order DVD sales and rental service as recently as 2010 to a company with a market cap of $192 billion in April 2020.
Even with people trying out new streaming services such as Disney+ and Amazon Video, they are not closing their Netflix accounts when doing so. Oftentimes, they subscribe to another service to watch a given series and then realize just how extensive the Netflix offering is in comparison with its library of nearly 14,000 titles. Many people also now tend to have a couple of streaming services at one time.
Going into the future, there is still plenty of upside for Netflix despite hitting an all-time high stock price. The company’s quarterly earnings report on April 21 revealed that the company almost doubled subscriber growth expectations with 15.7 million new users. Despite missing out on earnings per share expectations with $1.57, the streaming giant brought in revenue of $5.77 billion.
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