Netflix could lose 4 million U.S. subscribers in 2020 -analyst

Netflix may have racked up the most Golden Globe nominations of any media company this awards season but that's not easing worries of a customer exodus.

Shares of Netflix are down Tuesday after receiving their fourth Wall Street downgrade in two months.

The premise behind Tuesday's downgrade from Needham: Netflix could lose about 4 million U.S. subscribers in 2020 due to rising competition from lower-priced streaming services including AppleTV+ and Disney+.

In order to address the competition, Netflix is going to have to introduce a new lower-priced offering, according to the analyst who downgraded the stock.

Another option: allow ads to play. Ads on Netflix? That's something the company has strongly been opposed to.

Fear that rising competition will eat away at Netflix's sector-leading 61 million paying U.S. subscribers has weighed on investor sentiment, along with its heavy debt load to pay for all its original content.

The stock is up only 13 percent year to date, while the gain for the tech-heavy Nasdaq is more than double that.