Netflix CEO Reveals His Company’s Biggest Rivals: YouTube and Sleep

April 20, 2017 5:00 am
Reed Hastings, chief executive officer of Netflix Inc., speaks during a news conference in Tokyo, Japan, on Monday, June 27, 2016. Netflix intends to produce more original Japanese television shows after the 10-episode “Hibana” series it introduced earlier this month beat the company's expectations by drawing viewers from Brazil to Germany and the U.S. Photographer: Akio Kon/Bloomberg
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. (Akio Kon/Bloomberg)

 

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has revealed the biggest competitors to the streaming service…and they’re not the usual suspects.

In an interview with analysts after the release of his company’s first quarter financials, he named sleep as a nemesis since that’s what viewers deny themselves when they get addicted to Stranger Things or other Netflix series: “We are really competing with sleep on the margin.”

He also acknowledged Netflix is “nowhere near as big as YouTube” and declared they have “YouTube envy.” (YouTube claims users watch roughly a billion hours of video each day.)

Read more about Hastings’ comments at USA TODAY.

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