Netflix‘s subscription count seems to be growing all of a sudden due to the outbreak of the CoronaVirus worldwide and since most people have been advised to stay indoor or work from home, many tech companies have replied by closing offices advising employees to work remotely while others are temporarily laid off until things gets settled.
Outbreak had now become the 9th most popular thing people are streaming on the platform in the US whose plot was based upon an outbreak of a killer virus tha emerged in California being fought off.
Coronavirus is a serious virus that attacks human’s respiratory system causing COVID-19 which had been spreading throughout the world like wildfire over the last couple of month which eventually led to the WHO declaring the disease a pandemic.
Because of this, businesses have halted some of their operations, many events have been cancelled and even sporting leagues have been put on hold. Big budget movie releases have been delayed, TV production on hold and its as if the whole world is on hold until we’re able to find a way to conquer this disease.
And since the government of the most affected countries around the world has advised the complete quarantine of citizens, the United States is not an exception and of course people are therefore going to binge Netflix.
But Netflix isn’t the only movie streaming service as there are now more options which includes the Disney Plus, Apple TV Plus, Amazon Prime and Hulu, not to forget that Italian citizens got free Premium accounts on PornHub this oast week.
Whether this outbreak will cause streaming services like Netflix to boom suddenly is still under questioning as Analysts thinks the economic hardship caused by the outbreak will cause people to reconsider their services.
Some had initially thought of the outbreak to cause Netflix business to boom more as people are confined into their homes and stuck with the service and streaming more movies and series.
Analysts at RBC, Canaccord Genuity, MoffettNathanson, LightShed and BMO all say the coronavirus outbreak is either low risk to Netflix or potentially even helpful.
But as Analyst Laura Martin has it, because the single monthly subscription gives you unlimited access to watch all you can on the service, that doesn’t mean the social distancing mean Netflix business will suddenly get a big boost.
While there might be just a few couple of new people joining the service, majority of the US households already have subscription and might just return back to their old account and so forth. Being stuck in the home for weeks might not in its entirety guarantee that the service will suddenly get a big surge according to Martin who also said the service has a big 61 million subscribers giving a ratio of 1 out of 4 persons in the country to already be on the platform.
And if you want to argue about their international growth, the pandemic is currently causing economic issues throughout some countries and in fact, some countries have their own local streaming services which might be boosted during this period.
Netflix’s growth in the international market might not be super fast and the fact that the WHO had declared Europe as the new center of the COVID-19 pandemic and the US president taking drastic action by banning travel from most European countries for the next 39 days, this is surely a real issue and though assurance was made that the ban won’t affect trade but this isn’t so guaranteed.
People will surely be entertaining themselves in the comforts of their homes regardless of whether they want to get signed up on Netflix or not but they will surely use other freemium services and not to forget about YouTube as another great service.
Netflix declined to comment on the coronavirus’ effect.
But still, the service’s growth won’t just drown because of the pandemic because the service is big enough to sustain itself during this period. If they could also lessen their subscription fees, that could bring in a ton of new user base.
Parts of the impact of the virus includes the halting of services such as Disney Plus, Apple TV Plus to all postpone productions while highprofile original services such as the Falcon and the Winter Soldier for both the Disney+ and The morning show for Apple Tv+ have been on hold and Netflix has in fact shut down all film and TV production in both the US and Canada.
But Netflix’s content-production machine is global and bigger than that of any other streaming service. Netflix had four new titles land Friday, and within the coming week another nine are set to arrive, including uplifting tales like this one about a nightmarish dystopian prison so the service isn’t drowning in the dispair of the Covid-19 disease as it can at least surge back to prominence and retain its relevance during this difficult time.
