As summer draws to a close, so do some of the hit series on Netflix, with several movies and TV series set to leave the streaming video platform in September. At the same time, Disney+ half-price membership bookings, which will be launched in November, have experienced a frenzy and a website paralysis. Competitors are fierce, and there is not much time left for the Netflix family to dominate.
According to the rough estimate of foreign media IB Times, at least 30 movies/TV and other content will leave Netflix in September, including the films Batman Begins ("Batman: The Mystery of the Shadow") and The Dark Knight ("Batman: The Dark Knight"), Disney's animated films "Mulan", "Star Baby: The Ultimate Mission", "Star Baby 2: Stitch has a problem" and other popular works will also be withdrawn from Netflix. Build momentum for Disney+, which will go live in November.
Yesterday, the news of Costco's mad robbery swept across the Entire Chinese Internet, creating a miracle of offline retail store opening. On the other hand, Disney+ booking members snapped up online websites, much to the horror of the streaming industry.
Dinsey+ will go live on November 13 and launch a membership pre-sale service on Tuesday, as the offer is so strong that consumers flock to it, and its official fan club website, D23, was paralyzed for three hours.
It is reported that the exclusive membership offer launched by Disney is as follows: subscribe to Disney+ service for 3 years, you can enjoy an annual discount of $46.99, which is $23 a year from the original price of $69.99, which translates to only $3.92 per month, which is nearly half of the previous $6.99 subscription price.
Source: D23 official website
The Disney+ content library includes Disney copyright library, Pixar Animation Studio copyright content, Marvel copyright content, Star Wars series, National Geographic content, etc., with up to 300 movies, more than 7,000 TV series, and a content line in production. Compared with Amazon Prime Video and Netflix's $8.99 basic package in the United States, and Apple TV+'s $9.99, $3.92 is really a heartwarming price.
Apple, which plans to launch Apple TV+ by the end of November, has allocated a $6 billion budget to support the original shows and movies needed for the upcoming service. In addition to disney and Apple, which have money and money, AT&T announced that it will launch HBO Max in the spring of 2020 at a price of $16-17 per month, including HBO shows, exclusive copyright content, Warner-owned movies, and possibly even sports events, live news content.
Media companies such as Comcast and CBS will also launch their own streaming media platforms.
In order to resist the loss of third-party authorized content, Netflix has spent a lot of money to increase the original information that is already public in the industry. Previously, there were media reports, BMO Capital Markets analyst Daniel Salmon mentioned in the survey record that Netflix will invest $15 billion in 2019 to continue to expand the scale of original content, this figure was $12 billion in 2018, and the growth rate of spending is expected to slow down, and it is expected to be $17.8 billion in 2020.
Not only to work content, Netflix has also begun to pay attention to brand and content marketing, with Netflix spending of $2.37 billion in 2018, up 65% year-on-year, and analysts expect it to grow 22% to $2.9 billion in 2019. On July 12, Netflix announced the appointment of Jack Lee Joe as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), officially taking office in September, and Jack has been the BBC Studio CMO since 2015.
Competitors are fierce, Netflix has no way to retreat, only to accelerate and run.
According to TV TIME statistics, Netflix's defensive work is doing well. Last week, August 19-25, TV TIME platform users were chasing the top ten hot dramas. Looking at the data for a few more weeks, there are more Netflix figures in the weekly list.
Source: TV TIME
In addition, last week, former US President Barack Obama invested in the production of the documentary "American Factory" on Netflix, because the film tells the story of Chinese entrepreneur Cao Dewang to build a factory in the United States, under the current Sino-US relations, the film has been widely discussed, especially in China.
Although Netflix is unable to watch it on the mainland, Netflix has not abandoned its plans to produce Chinese content in order to attract Chinese audiences in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and Southeast Asia. At Netflix's "New Chinese Forces" press conference on August 26, Erika North, Netflix's international original director, announced that the first batch of Chinese-language dramas invested by Netflix will be on the shelves from the second half of this year to the beginning of next year, and the first Chinese-language self-produced drama "Sin Dreamer" will be launched at the end of October.
According to the second quarterly report released by Netflix in July, the new 2.7 million subscribers worldwide were far lower than the previously expected 5 million, and the first decline in paying users in the US market decreased by 130,000, and the pressure on local user growth was over, so it was reasonable to turn its attention overseas. Previously, its CEO Reed Hastings said that the future direction of the main attack is South Korea, India, Poland and Japan.
Netflix's paying subscribers in the U.S. region fell rarely in the second quarter
Recently, news broke that Netflix applied for a license to operate for a long time in Vietnam to strengthen its development in the country. Obviously, the opponents have given Netflix time, and the current Netflix will not let go of any possible market.
Since the second quarter report came out, Netflix has continued to decline. New developments from competitors have also weighed on Netflix's stock price, which is only up 9% this year and the S&P 500 is up 14% in the same period. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg gave Netflix an average 12-month price target of $388.27, 33.4 percent higher than the August 27 close.
JPMorgan Chase said that although the growth of Q2 users is staggering, but usually Q2 volatility will be relatively large, can not be used as a basis for speculation throughout the year, and believes that in the second half of the year with the launch of a number of high-quality content, Netflix is expected to regain user growth. Netflix expects A$7 million global subscribers in Q3 and JPMorgan Chase expects 6.9 million. After the earnings report, JPMorgan Chase lowered its price target to $425.
Earlier, we mentioned that the third season of "Stranger Things", which was launched in early July, had 40.7 million Netflix users subscribe to watch it on the 4th day of the launch, setting a record for the platform.
Stifel said that the explanation given by Netflix management - due to the seasonal impact of content scheduling, user growth declined, relatively reasonable, the current tracking data shows that Q3 user growth is optimistic. Until Disney+ goes live in November, Netflix's stock price will be affected by this performance fluctuations until the next catalyst appears - Q3 performance. After the earnings report, Stifel lowered its price target to $400 and gave it a "buy" rating.
Deutsche Bank pointed out that Netflix's performance in the second quarter can't help but cause people to think a lot about Netflix: whether Netflix's pricing power still exists; whether Netflix can still maintain user growth as content spending slows down; whether the demand curve for Netflix by users in overseas markets has begun to flatten out... Deutsche believes that the problem is worth thinking about, but the content line of Netflix in the second half of the year is indeed relatively sufficient, and the net increase in paid users in Q2 in overseas markets is still growing, and with the promotion of overseas market promotion initiatives, revenue may still have a reason to be optimized, and this less than expected financial report is regarded as a buying opportunity.
After the earnings report, Deutsche Bank lowered its price target to $410 and gave it a "buy" rating.
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