With Netflix’s subscriber base growing by more than seven million by the end of last year, CEO Reed Hastings has announced he’s stepping down, writes bbc. It is said that he has been planning this move for a long time, and is not going to completely break away from the company: he will remain CEO.
The company is now managed by Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters, both of whom have been in senior management positions for some time.
“Reed Hastings’ stepping down from his current role raises many questions about Netflix’s future strategy,” said Jimmy Lumley, an analyst with research firm Third Bridge. “The new co-CEO Greg Peters will have a number of important decisions to make, from managing rising costs, to sharing passwords and cracking codes, to finding the next weird thing.”
Netflix subscribers have been increasing again recently, and according to the data, the joint documentary series of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (we wrote about it here), the series Wednesday (our review here), and the sequel to Trapped (we wrote about it here) were also very popular.
In the last three months of 2022, the number of subscribers to the live-streaming platform increased by 7.66 million, while analysts previously expected an increase of only about 4.5 million.
And at the beginning of 2022, Netflix didn’t have an easy time: competitors like Amazon, HBO, Apple TV, and Disney were also making headway, leading Amazon to claim the title of the most popular streaming provider in the US for a while. Netflix has cut hundreds of jobs while raising prices for users to cover the rising costs.
Then in November, it introduced a cheaper ad-supported option in 12 countries and indicated that it would be less forgiving of password sharing in the future.
