Why Netflix's Demand is Surging More Than Spotify's
These days Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) is seeing tremendous usage because the coronavirus outbreak is keeping so many people at home. It's reasonable to think all sorts of streaming entertainment would be benefiting in similar ways, but it's less clear that streaming music and audio from Spotify (NYSE: SPOT) are seeing the same benefit.
We already know Netflix is the perfect coronavirus stock. Europeans are streaming so much Netflix these days that the company agreed to slightly reduce the quality of its streaming in order to reduce internet congestion. On March 19, news broke that founder and CEO Reed Hastings spoke with European Union Commissioner Thierry Breton and agreed to reduce the bit rates of Netflix's streams in Europe for the following 30 days. This change is intended to reduce Netflix's traffic on European networks by 25% while still maintaining a high quality stream for its customers.
On March 24, executives from AT&T told investors in a business update that it was seeing all-time high Netflix usage on its network. "We saw a dip in traffic [on March 23] from Netflix after all-time highs on Friday/Saturday," the company said.
Source Fool.com
