Despite producing global hits like “Squid Game” in 2021, Netflix’s fourth quarter returns show the streaming giant struggling to maintain a lead over its competitors. The company fell short of its projections for new subscribers this quarter, adding 8.3 million as opposed to its projected 8.5 million — it also projects to add just 2.5 million subscribers in Q1 2022, down from 4 million last year (the company says this is because it has “a more back-end weighted content slate” for the quarter). Overall, this year marks a downward trend in subscriber growth — its the company’s lowest growth year since 2015 and about a 50% decrease from its pandemic-inflated 2020 numbers.
