The American firm lost 200,000 subscribers between January and March, stated its quarterly report released yesterday

Netflix has experienced its first loss in subscriber numbers in more than 10 years, sparking fears that the ground-breaking streaming service has peaked.

The American firm lost 200,000 subscribers between January and March, stated its quarterly report released yesterday.

Its release caused shares to plunge by a quarter (25 per cent) in trading, marking the first time that subscriber numbers had dropped since the streaming service became available globally six years ago.

There were concerns that matters might get worse after Netflix projected a loss of another two million subscribers during the period between April and June. It could mean that shares in Netflix may have lost half their value in the space of half a year.

Netflix said the Covid boom ‘obscured the picture’ and blamed intense competition and the large number of households sharing accounts for the fall.

In a letter to shareholders yesterday the company said: Our revenue growth has slowed considerably as our results and forecast show.

This latest subscriber loss was worse than forecast by Netflix management, who had anticipated a gain of around 2.5 million subscribers, despite knowing that it had benefited from a surge of signups because of its captive audience during the coronavirus pandemic.

The latest figures mark the fourth time in the last five quarters that the company’s subscriber growth has fallen below the gains of the previous year. Investors say they fear that the streaming service may be suffering from increased competition from wealthy rivals such as Apple and the Walt Disney empire.

There were also reports that Netflix had suffered from its decision to suspend operations in Russia over Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine. The platform’s decision to pull out of Russia cost it 700,000 subscribers.