The video-streaming service  Netflix saw the number of its monthly active users in South Korea decline for a third consecutive month, data showed Thursday. It is the first time the figure has ever dropped for three straight months.

Netflix had 8.08 million monthly active users here in April, down 1.9 percent from 8.24 million in March, according to the data published by market researcher Nielsen Koreanclick.

The figure peaked at 8.99 million in January, according to the data.

The video-streaming giant posted rapid growth last year as the pandemic fueled demand for stay-at-home activities. The number of monthly active users in May last year reached 6.37 million, a huge jump from 2.52 million a year earlier.

The recent slump is partly due to increasing competition in the local market, according to industry sources. A lack of new content caused by delays in production from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic may have also contributed to the slowdown.

In Korea, Netflix is expected to face more competition as US media giant Walt Disney is set to launch Disney+ sometime this year, while local streaming service providers are increasing their investment to counter Netflix.

Korea’s No. 2 streaming player -- Wavve, owned by the country’s leading mobile carrier, SK Telecom, and three major broadcasters -- announced that it would invest 1 trillion won ($882.5 million) by 2025 with the aim of ramping up content production. Wavve had 3.7 million monthly active users as of April.

Another local rival, Tving, is expected to increase investment via its partnership with broadcaster JTBC and internet giant Naver. Tving had 2.93 million monthly active users by April, slightly down from 3.12 million users in January.

Meanwhile, Netflix said last month that the company’s global paid memberships during the January-March period this year reached 208 million, up 14 percent on-year.

Although global paid memberships with US streaming services continued to increase during the first quarter of this year, the growth has slowed down dramatically compared with the first quarter of 2020, when memberships soared by 15.8 million.

Netflix said it expected the growth of new paid memberships to dip further in the second quarter of this year, reaching just 1 million.

By Shim Woo-hyun (ws@heraldcorp.com)