Netflix stock falling after losing subscribers to price hike
Netflix has suffered several setbacks in its quest to stream the world lately—losing the rights to content from Starz (and with it films from Disney and Sony), facing a rapidly growing number of competitors—but none have hurt the company quite like its own decision to force its customers to choose between streaming and physical DVDs, or pay a 60-percent price hike to keep them both. Yeah, so how is that working out for them? Apparently, not so great, thanks for asking. After Netflix sent shareholders a statement this morning that admitted it was seeing much lower numbers of subscribers than expected this quarter—and had seen far more cancellations than it had anticipated in the wake of the price hike—the company downgraded its annual estimates accordingly, leading several analysts to recommend that those shareholders cut loose and sell. The result was a nearly 15-percent drop in heavy trading for Netflix stock.