Netflix Reports a Subscriber Bump as Disney Poses a New Threat

Reed Hastings, the chief executive of Netflix, has grown used to going up against Amazon, Hulu and YouTube. But the Walt Disney Company’s entry into the streaming industry, with Disney Plus, caught his attention.

After Netflix released its earnings figures for the fourth quarter of 2019 on Tuesday, Mr. Hastings noted his new rival’s “great” content lineup, including “The Mandalorian,” a “Star Wars” series featuring the character known as Baby Yoda. And in a rare acknowledgment of a competitor’s strength, he added that the emergence of Disney in streaming “takes away a little from us.”

Disney Plus started strong in November, signing up 10 million customers on its first day, and industry insiders wondered how much Disney might have dinged Netflix.

Turns out, a little bit, according to Netflix’s latest results.

The streaming giant signed up 420,000 new customers in the United States during the last three months of 2019, the company reported. That fell shy of the 600,000 it had expected.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/21/business/media/netflix-q4-2019-earnings-nflx.html?emc=rss&partner=rss