Business

Netflix loses 200,000 customers, first decline in a decade

After a decade of meteoric growth that shook Hollywood to its core, Netflix Inc. has run into a wall.

The streaming service lost 200,000 customers in the first quarter, according to a statement Tuesday, the first time it has shed subscribers since 2011. Netflix also projects it will lose another 2 million customers in the current second quarter, setting up its worst year ever as a public company.

Investors, analysts and Hollywood executives had been bracing for the company to report a sluggish start to the year, but Wall Street still expected Netflix to add 2.5 million customers. The shares, already down more than 40 percent this year, tumbled as much as 24 percent to $265.11 in after-hours trading.

Netflix management pointed to four causes, including the prevalence of password sharing and growing competition. The company said there are 100 million households that use its service and don’t pay for it, on top of its 221.6 million subscribers. The company is experimenting with ways to sign up those viewers.

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“Our relatively high household penetration — when including the large number of households sharing accounts — combined with competition, is creating revenue growth headwinds, management wrote in a letter to shareholders.

The results will have ramifications for all of the big entertainment companies. After watching millions of customers abandon pay TV for streaming, US entertainment giants have merged and restructured to compete with Netflix in streaming. Investors encouraged this strategic shift, buying shares in companies like Walt Disney Co. that demonstrated a commitment to streaming.

Late entrants

Netflix’s troubles will cause investors to question whether the later-arriving media companies will sign up enough customers to justify all the money they are spending on fresh programming. Disney fell as much as 5.2 percent in extended trading, while Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., the owner of HBO Max, declined as much as 2.8 percent.

Co-Chief Executive Officers Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos had dismissed the company’s recent slowdown in growth as a speed bump related to the pandemic, which accelerated its growth in 2020. But its subscriber acquisition has slowed for a year and a half, and the company hasn’t reverted to pre-pandemic levels.

“The big Covid boost to streaming obscured the picture until recently, the company wrote in its letter.

Netflix lost customers in three of its four regions, including more than 600,000 in the US and Canada. It blamed most of that attrition on a price increase, and said the decline was expected. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine cost the company another 700,000 customers when it had to pull its service in Russia, resulting in a loss of 300,000 customers in the Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Bright spot

Asia was the lone bright spot. Netflix added more than 1 million customers in the region, buoyed by popular new titles such as the South Korean drama “All of Us Are Dead.

Overall, Netflix had forecast subscribers would grow by 2.5 million in the first quarter, roughly in line with Wall Street estimates. For the current period, analysts were predicting gains of 2.43 million.

Netflix remains well ahead of most of its competitors outside the US, and is the largest streaming service in the world. The company believes it can execute its way out of the current predicament by luring new customers with better programs and finding more ways to charge its existing user base. Whether Wall Street believes that is up for debate.

First-quarter revenue grew 9.8 percent to $7.87 billion, missing analysts’ estimates. Profit, at $3.53 a share, easily topped projections of $2.91.

For the current quarter, Netflix predicts sales will grow 9.7 percent to $8.05 billion, with profit coming in a $3 a share. Both are below Wall Street forecasts of $8.23 billion and $3.02 a share.

Business

Almarai signs multiple agreements to localize jobs through training and recruitment programs

Almarai signed a cooperation memorandum with the Food Industries Polytechnic, the
Transport General Authority, and the Saudi Logistics Academy to localize jobs in the
food and beverages sector through training and rehabilitation programs ending in
employment. This came within the first international conference on the labor market,
organized by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development on 13 – 14
December 2023 at the King Abdulaziz Convention Center in Riyadh.

‘These agreements are part of Almarai’s corporate program for the social responsibility
to achieve localization in the food industry sector, which is one of the top priorities of the
comprehensive strategic plans in Almarai, especially since the company is one of the
largest working environments in the kingdom, with more than 9,000 Saudi employees,
including more than 900 Saudi female employees.”Fahad Aldrees, Chief Human
Resources Officer of Almarai, said.

He added that the agreements signed to train and qualify young people are part of the
integrated initiatives and training and rehabilitation programs for national human
resources in Almarai. He pointed out that the company provided about half a million
employee training hours during 2022, raising its retention rate to 90% during 2022.

It is worth mentioning that Almarai is the world’s largest vertically integrated dairy
company, and the largest food and beverage producer and distributor in the Middle
East. Almarai was ranked among LinkedIn’s top 15 Saudi companies for professional
career development for 2022.

Business

SEBA Bank rebrands to AMINA Bank and continues to write its success story

a fully licensed Swiss crypto bank, announced today its new brand identity: AMINA Bank AG. The group operates
globally from its regulated hubs in Zug, Abu Dhabi and Hong Kong, offering its clients traditional and crypto banking services.
SEBA Bank made history in 2019 by becoming one of the first FINMA-regulated institutions to provide crypto banking services. This rebrand marks a new chapter for the company, which has proudly been in operation for more than four years. AMINA Bank is inspired by the same trailblazing ambition to lead the way for its clients and to write its own future as a Swiss-
regulated crypto bank offering services to its traditional and crypto savvy clients around the globe. The name ‘AMINA’ stems from the term ‘transAMINAtion’, meaning transference of one compound to another. AMINA is a brand driven by perpetual change, bringing together the various ‘compounds’ of traditional, digital, and crypto banking to unlock new potential and
growth for our clients. This vision of change represents the transformation of our clients’ financial future. Franz Bergmueller, CEO of AMINA, said: “We are delighted to introduce the world to our new brand identity. While we say goodbye to the SEBA name, we remain forever proud of the achievements made by the group under the former brand. “Our brand signifies a new era in the company’s growth and strategy; we are a key player in crypto banking and are here to define the future of finance. With our client-focused approach, our years of traversing traditional and crypto finance, we offer a platform for investors to build
wealth safely and under the highest regulatory standards.” “We are grateful to be encouraged by our supportive and committed investors who have been very helpful, supporting the growth of the company. We thank our employees in all the regions
for their dedication and client focus. As we look forward to 2024, our ambition is to accelerate the growth of our strategic hubs in Switzerland, Hong Kong, and Abu Dhabi, and to continue our global expansion, building on all the successes we have laid down over the past years.” Current clients of AMINA Bank (formerly SEBA Bank) will be unaffected by the rebrand other than encountering the new name; all operations will be business as usual across the board. The branch office based in Abu Dhabi and the subsidiaries in Hong Kong and Singapore will subsequently apply for a name change to align with the head office in Zug.

Business

Uptime Appoints Mustapha Louni Chief Business Officer

Uptime Institute is pleased to announce the appointment of Mustapha Louni to the position of Chief Business Officer, a role specifically created to drive strategic leadership and client success. In this new role, Mr. Louni will assume responsibility for the global Uptime sales and marketing organizations and drive overall business value for all Uptime clients. He will retain his existing responsibilities overseeing operations in the Middle East, India, Africa, and the Asia Pacific regions. In this elevated capacity, Mr. Louni is poised to play a pivotal role in driving Uptime’s next phase of global expansion through strategic initiatives to enhance market awareness of the dramatically expanding global service lines and delivery capabilities of Uptime that uniquely support the global data center industry in its pursuit of ever higher performance through elevated availability, resiliency, sustainability, and cyber-security of digital infrastructure. Louni’s appointment renews and expands Uptime

Institute 39;s 30-year commitment to advancing excellence in the data center sector on a global scale. “Today we are experiencing the next phase of the one-time, planetary transformation from analog to digital. This unprecedented, once-in-a-generation growth in data center demand is primarily driven by continuing cloud adoption, the new promise of AI, and the demonstrable fact
that hybrid digital infrastructure is here to stay for the foreseeable future,” said Martin McCarthy, CEO, Uptime Institute. “These complex and nuanced market demands require a visionary talent like Mustapha Louni. He is someone who cannot only deftly manage specific aspects of the business but also remain ahead of accelerating changes and trends. He continues to earn client
trust and respect by timely delivery on demanding commitments while he also inspires and energizes colleagues and clients alike. I am delighted to announce Mr. Louni’s new position and know that he will continue to expand the impact that he has already brought to Uptime since his arrival.” In 2014, Mr. Louni joined the Uptime organization in the United Arab Emirates, leveraging his extensive experience from roles at Panduit and Schneider Electric in Paris and Dubai. As the company’s first commercial resource in the Middle East and Africa region, Mr. Louni played a pivotal role in expanding Uptime’s presence. Within a year, he successfully established what became and remains Uptime’s fastest growing regional office. Under his leadership, Uptime has
extended his impressive trajectory of growth in MEA to the Asia-Pacific regions, augmenting the Uptime workforce with dedicated team members spanning more than a dozen countries across these regions. A new Uptime office has been inaugurated in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) this year, further fortifying the company’s ability to meet its commitment to sustained
growth and excellence and serve clients in critical, accelerating markets for digital infrastructure.

Uptime Institute began development of its proprietary and now globally recognized Tier Standards and its Tier Certifications 30 years ago to ensure that the mission critical computing needs of all organizations could be met with confidence and understood by executive management. Since that time, Uptime Tier Certification as well as other Uptime offerings including assessments and awards in digital infrastructure for ensuring business performance in areas of management and operations, risk and resilience, sustainability, and more recently cyber- security have gained global adoption. Uptime’s expanding success is based on delivering a
unique business service that is based upon unparalleled engineering excellence and technical mastery, while remaining vendor independent and technology agnostic.