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Reed Hastings

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Streaming giant Netflix has seen a surge in sign-ups due to the coronavirus lockdown, but the company has warned investors that subscriber growth will slow.

Netflix added more than 10 million subscribers in Q2 of 2020, bringing the total of new subscribers to 26 million in 2020.

In contrast, Netflix saw 28 million new subscribers for the whole of 2019.

The company said: “Growth is slowing as consumers get through the initial shock of coronavirus and social restrictions.”

Netflix shares dropped in after-hours trading as investors received the company’s quarterly update.

Its revenue increased almost 25% to $6.1 billion, while profits rose to $720 million in the quarter, up from $271 million a year ago.

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The subscriber additions were far higher than analysts had expected.

While, some people might still end up quitting the service, the pandemic has clearly shown that Netflix is an indispensable part of viewers lives, analysts said.

Netflix also announced it was promoting chief content officer Ted Sarandos to co-chief executive.

CEO Reed Hastings told investors: “This change makes formal what was already informal – that Ted and I share the leadership of Netflix.”

Netflix was founded in 1997by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California. The company’s initial business model included DVD sales and rental by mail, but Hastings abandoned the sales about a year after the company’s founding to focus on the initial DVD rental business. Today, Netflix produces and distributes content from countries all over the globe.

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Netflix has extended its service to nearly every country in the world.

The streaming service company announced it had switched on its service in 130 additional countries.

Netflix said it was still trying to expand to China. The other exceptions are North Korea, Syria and Crimea, where it is banned from operating by US law.

The announcement was made by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings at his keynote speech at the CES tech show in Las Vegas.

Reed Hastings also confirmed that Netflix would begin offering HDR (high dynamic range) content later this year.

Netflix shares jumped to about 8% over their opening price following the announcements.

Reed Hastings said Netflix was in talks with the Chinese government, but acknowledged it would take time to reach an agreement.

“It’s a very large country, you know a billion Chinese that we want to give access to the Netflix content,” he said.

“In China you need specific permission from the government to operate, so we are continuing to work on that and we are very patient.”

As part of its expansion, Netflix has added support for Korean, Chinese and Arabic to its list of supported languages.

That brings the total number – in which the firm provides subtitles, captions and alternative audio – to 21 languages.

Reed Hastings added that Netflix would initially focus on expanding the reach of its existing content rather than commissioning extra locally-made shoNetflix at CES 2016ws.

For consumers who already have Netflix, the biggest change may be the addition of HDR.

High dynamic range video allows compatible TVs to show millions more colors and a wider dynamic range – added shades of brightness in between black and white – letting more detail be shown.

Many experts believe the impact is greater than that of just jumping from 1080p to 4K ultra-high definition resolution alone. One consequence of using the format, however, is that it requires more data, and few TVs support it yet.

Reed Hastings said users with compatible TVs should get a “visceral sensation that’s pretty amazing”.

Netflix’s rival, Amazon, began streaming a limited number of shows in the format in 2015.

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