Netflix yesterday announced that it added more than 5 million new subscribers in the quarter ending June 2017 bringing its total number of subscribers to about 104 million.
Netflix shares rose nearly 8 percent yesterday on the news and in a statement they said, “We underestimated the popularity of our strong slate of content which led to higher-than-expected acquisition across all major territories” which means content was key to the growth.
Their original shows like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black seem to be holding their own in spite of hackers of stealing the entire season and leaking them online.
But as they also acknowledged, Amazon and other tech giants have been pushing further into its territory with original content. “The large-cap tech companies, especially Amazon, are investing heavily in original and licensed content around the world…creating a TV network is now as easy as creating an app, and investment is pouring into content production around the world.”
Facebook on its part unveiled plans to partner with content creators to produce its own original content. They have reportedly signed deals with millennial focused news and entertainment creator like Vox Media and BuzzFeed to have more original videos on its platform. It is said that Facebook would pay as much as $250,000 for long scripted content.
