Netflix Has More U.S. Subscribers Than Cable TV

Excerpts from an article by Tom Huddleston, Jr. in Fortune

Streaming media has totally upended the entertainment landscape, and Netflix has led the charge, as shown by the fact that the popular streaming service’s U.S. subscriber base has doubled in just the past five years.

Now, Netflix has claimed a major symbolic victory over the country’s biggest cable providers, with research showing that the streaming service now has more U.S. streaming subscribers (50.85 million) than the number of customers for the country’s largest cable companies (48.61 million). Netflix announced those subscriber totals as part of its most recent quarterly earnings report, while the cable industry numbers come from a study published last month by Leichtman Research Group, which estimated the combined subscriber base of the top six U.S. cable companies, led by Comcast (22.5 million) and Charter Communications (17.1 million), and representing the bulk of the U.S. cable industry.

While Leichtman Research estimated that the top cable companies lost more than 100,000 total subscribers in the most recent fiscal quarter, Netflix said in April that the company added 1.4 million domestic users in that same period. And, while cable companies fear further subscriber losses, Netflix is forecasting continued subscriber growth that could put the streaming company’s U.S. subscriber total at roughly 51.5 million when the company reports earnings again next month.

Read the full article in FortuneAnd download Zuora’s e-book 4 Business Imperatives for D2C Subscription Businesses!

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