Disrupting the disruptor. The Curse of Cassandra strikes again.

Netflix stock has “a growing YouTube problem,” a Wall Street analyst says. Alphabet’s YouTube is taking increasing viewer share.

Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) shares slipped Tuesday after HSBC downgraded the streaming giant to Hold from Buy and slashed its price target 21%, warning that weakening engagement and intensifying competition from YouTube could make a near-term recovery harder to deliver. Analyst Mohammed Khallouf cut his target to $76 from $96, leaving only about 3% upside from current levels and putting renewed focus on whether Netflix can defend viewing time without materially increasing content costs.

Netflix stock fell more than 1% at Tuesday’s open following the downgrade.

HSBC’s central concern is engagement. Khallouf said near-term recovery in engagement looks unlikely, citing a declining reception for Netflix original content and the growing share of television viewing captured by YouTube.

That competitive pressure is increasingly visible in the numbers. YouTube reached a record 14.2% share of U.S. television viewing in July, while Netflix accounted for 7.8%, according to data cited by HSBC. Netflix’s own engagement metrics also weakened: viewing hours for English-language programs appearing on its weekly Top 10 lists declined roughly 17% year over year across July and August.

“YouTube has been benefiting, in our view, from a declining reception to Netflix’s original content,” Khallouf said in a client note. “Near-term recovery in engagement looks unlikely.”

Netflix has shifted more into YouTube’s space with video podcasts, sports and other content.

“YouTube has been rapidly expanding its living room footprint, having captured a record 14.2% share of U.S. TV time this July,” Khallouf said. “This momentum is increasingly coming at the direct expense of Netflix as its share fell to a multiyear low of 7.8%.”

Netflix Stock Cut To Sell Rating

Meanwhile, rival Apple’s (AAPL) Apple TV+ subscription service is riding high after dominating the Primetime Emmy Awards last week with 29 wins for critically acclaimed shows such as “Widow’s Bay,” “Pluribus” and “Slow Horses.” Netflix scored 16 Emmy Awards.

On Friday, Wells Fargo analyst Steven Cahall lowered his rating on Netflix stock to underweight, or sell, from equal weight, or neutral. He also slashed his price target to 57 from 80.

“Engagement trends look worrying to us,” Cahall said in a report. He also noted competition with YouTube.

Source: Investor’s Business Daily

NB: You wait years and years for the obvious to happen. So long that you give up. Then it happens.

It’s an anomaly. Pay attention to anomalies.

In a new interview, Clique TV’s Mouloud Achour asked Ternus: “The Vision Pro: for you is it a test, a flop, or the first step to the future of what’s going to be…a computer?”

Here’s what Ternus said:

“Vision Pro to me is an amazing device. It’s an absolutely amazing device. But I think of it as like the early days of computers. It is the early days of a long journey. That’s how I feel about Vision Pro. What you see, if you think about the early days, people found different reasons where the computer allowed them, the Mac allowed them to do something never before possible. Like desktop publishing, and it became a big thing in that industry.

What you’re seeing with Vision Pro now is, certainly there’s early adopters who love it and they’re using it and they’re enjoying it, but you also—surgeons are starting to use it in surgery because it’s just a fundamentally better tool for them than a monitor that’s kind of sitting over here. And so it’s growing in that area. In film production people are using it for set development and things like that. So we’re going to continue to grow and find more and more compelling use cases. And I think there’s a very bright future.”

Source: 9to5Mac

NB: Tim Cook launched and supported the Vision Pro while…