Entertainment stocks have been battered in 2022 as competition in the crowded streaming field heats up and economic uncertainty weighs on consumers’ wallets.
Shares in the major Hollywood companies with streaming services are all down double digits year to date: Disney (36%), Netflix (46%), Paramount Global (36%), Comcast (29%) and Warner Brothers Discovery (54%).
So how do the major streamers stack up? Well, analysts have focused on two key metrics — total subscribers, particularly newer services looking to gain a foothold in the space and achieve some scale to justify their heavy spending on content, and the average revenue per user, a measure of just how much those subscribers are contributing to the bottom line.