Overview
- Reporting published Monday shows Netflix customers are opening the app on fewer days each month and spending less time watching, a decline the company tracks with a metric called qualified play days.
- App-usage data from Apptopia found the share of U.S. subscribers who did not open Netflix rose 16.6% in the third quarter year-over-year, supporting the company’s internal signals of lower per-user use.
- The engagement slump has not triggered mass cancellations so far; research firm Antenna reports U.S. churn has held around 2% even as total viewing hours edged up because of new subscribers.
- Netflix has responded by replacing content leaders, cutting roughly 6% of staff, naming Peter Rice to lead content strategy, and increasing investment in programming and new formats such as podcasts and live sports.
- Management also disclosed an advertising-sales shortfall of about $300 million that it blamed on slower rollout of ad products, a development that has weighed on the stock and pushed executives to refocus on content and monetization.