The benchmark index itself is up about 190%, while the S&P 500 communication-services index is up less than 60%.<\/p>\n
The advance reflects an\u00a0industry-wide<\/span>\u00a0shift to streaming video, a trend that Netflix has been at the forefront of.<\/p>\n While the company first introduced on-demand streaming in 2007, it became a central part of the company\u2019s identity in early 2013 with the debut of \u201cHouse of Cards,\u201d a high-profile and big-budget political thriller that would go on for six seasons and be nominated for dozens of Emmy Awards. The bulk of the company\u2019s decade-dominating surge came in the wake of the release.<\/p>\n The impact of streaming on the entertainment industry is difficult to overstate. Movie-theater chains\u00a0have struggled<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0against this new form of competition, while the cable industry has faced\u00a0an exodus of \u201ccord cutters\u201d<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>abandoning traditional television.<\/p>\n Roku Inc., which operates as a platform for streaming services, recently predicted that ad revenue related to streaming\u00a0would soon eclipse<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0that of traditional TV, while even non-media companies like Facebook Inc. and Apple Inc. have been making investments into original content in a bid to keep users in their \u201cecosystems.\u201d<\/p>\n Netflix was hardly the only company in the streaming space over the past decade — notable rivals include Hulu and Amazon\u2019s Prime Video — but customers flocked to it, with its global subscriber base expanding from less than 45 million in early 2013 to more than 166 million last quarter. International growth \u00a0has been a major focus<\/a><\/strong> for the company.<\/p>\n Netflix\u2019s outlook for the coming decade looks a lot less certain, in large part because it is increasingly facing rivals\u00a0that recognize the value<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>of streaming rights to popular shows like \u201cFriends\u201d and \u201cThe Office.\u201d<\/p>\n In September, Netflix announced it had\u00a0won the worldwide rights<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0to \u201cSeinfeld\u201d; it was reported that the deal was\u00a0valued at close to $500 million<\/a><\/strong>, adding to investor unease over Netflix\u2019s content costs.<\/p>\n Concerns about competition and Netflix\u2019s potential to further grow its user base have contributed to some weakness in the stock in recent months. While shares are up more than 20% in 2019, that represents the smallest gain of the so-called FAANG stocks — a group that also includes Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and Google-parent Alphabet. While other mega-cap tech stocks set records, Netflix has fallen 21% from highs set back in July 2018.<\/p>\n A key test for the stock will come in late January, when Netflix reports its fourth-quarter results. It will be the first earnings report since the November launch of the Disney+ streaming service, which garnered\u00a0millions of subscribers almost immediately<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Netflix investors have been torn on the impact of that competition, while next year will see even more entrants into the streaming space, including Comcast Corp.\u2019s NBCUniversal and AT&T Inc.\u2019s WarnerMedia.<\/p>\n Over the past 10 years, Netflix Inc. has led a revolution in the way the world consumes entertainment, and in doing so, it ruled over Wall Street.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341034,"featured_media":234064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[39088,12857,2054,3476],"class_list":["post-333580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broadcasting","tag-amazon-prime-video","tag-disney","tag-netflix","tag-video-streaming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333580"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333580"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":333584,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333580\/revisions\/333584"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/814x-1-4-640x359.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nNow read: All the South African series and movies coming to Netflix<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"