Netflix has offered $2 billion in debt to fuel its spending on content and other expenses.
According to Netflix, the funding will go towards “content acquisitions, production and development, capital expenditures, investments, working capital and potential acquisitions and strategic transactions.”
This follows another $2 billion debt offering from Netflix last October. Altogether, Netflix is expected to spend as much as $15 billion on content in 2019, up from the $12 billion it spent on content last year.
That said, 2019 will see Netflix face increased competition from new streaming services from Apple and Disney. The former revealed its Apple TV+ streaming service at the end of March, while the latter fully unveiled its Disney+ streaming service earlier this month.
Apple TV+ will launch in the U.S. and Canada sometime this fall, while Disney+ will initially only be available in the U.S. when it releases in November. However, Disney has confirmed that Disney+ will come to Canada at some point, likely during the first quarter of 2020 as part of a wider North American rollout.
By the end of 2019, American telecom giant AT&T will have also launched a streaming service through its Warner Media subsidiary, although it’s unclear if that is coming to Canada.
In spite of all the impending streaming services, Netflix has said it isn’t worried that its subscriber growth will be stunted. In its recent Q1 2019 earnings report, the company posted an increase of 9.6 million subscribers around the world — record quarterly growth for the company. Altogether, Netflix now has 148 million global subscribers.
“We don’t anticipate that these new entrants will materially affect our growth because the transition from linear to on-demand entertainment is so massive and because of the differing nature of our content offerings,” Netflix wrote in a Q1 2019 shareholder letter.
MobileSyrup may earn a commission from purchases made via our links, which helps fund the journalism we provide free on our website. These links do not influence our editorial content. Support us here.
