Netflix looks to cut costs, from cloud computing to corporate swag

As Netflix Inc. looks to save money in the face of slowing subscriber growth, the company is scouring its operations for opportunities to cut costs.

From paring back its real-estate footprint, to limiting corporate swag, to controlling cloud-computing costs and hiring more junior staff, the streaming giant is taking a range of steps to reduce spending, people familiar with the situation say.

Netflix said it lost nearly one million subscribers in the June quarter, citing heightened competition. The company has laid off more than 400 employees this year and has said it would hold steady its spending on new movie and TV programming. But the cost-cutting efforts are going deeper, touching most corners of the business, as the company imposes greater financial discipline.

Belt-tightening is commonplace for companies that confront financial pressures. At Netflix, where years of breakneck growth made cost controls a lower corporate priority, the newfound attention to spending on items big and small marks a cultural shift.

Netflix is trying to better control rising cloud-computing costs with longtime cloud partner Amazon Web Services, according to people familiar with that work. Netflix aims to keep costs from ballooning as it tries to increase its subscriber base to as many as 500 million customers globally in the next three years, those people said. Market Watch