Netflix Statistics: Is The Platform Still Growing? 

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Most people think that Netflix is a relatively new company.

But the truth is that Netflix was founded back in 1997 and physically shipped DVDs and videos to its subscribers by mail. By 2001 Netflix had more than 500,000 subscribers in their mail service.

Today Netflix is the giant in the online streaming world.

In 2007, Netflix developed the online platform you are most familiar with today – streaming movies, TV shows and more all over the world.

Netflix paved the way for a new industry that has taken the world by storm.

But is Netflix still as popular today as it once was?

These Netflix statistics tell the whole story of how many users Netflix has and how they perform against the growing competition.

Key Netflix Statistics

Netflix definitely had the first-mover advantage in online streaming.

But being first isn’t always the best.

Netflix has been met with tons of competition from major multinational companies. These are the key Netflix Statistics you need to know:

Now that you have some of the key Netflix statistics, let’s dive deeper.

Netflix Global Subscribers

Global subscribers are one of the most important metrics for Netflix investors.

It tells you whether the platform is-

1. Growing
2. Decreasing
3. Or stagnant.

The number of active worldwide Netflix subscribers is 260 million as of the last quarter of 2023.

Here is the full breakdown of Netflix global subscribers by year since 2013:

As you can see, Netflix has had a consistent growth until 2021.

In the last quarter of 2021, the number of Netflix subscribers was 221.84 million.

Netflix executives released a report at the end of the first quarter of 2022 detailing that the platform lost 200,000 subscribers over the 3-month period.

The day after the report was released, Netflix stock plunged by over 35%.

This was the single biggest drop in the history of the company.

It was the first time that investors realised that Netflix had serious competition in the streaming market. Being the oldest and most established online streaming platform isn’t enough to hold subscribers.

It’s all about the content.

But it didn’t stop there.

At the end of the second quarter of 2022, Netflix had 220.67 million subscribers.

Overall, 2022 wasn’t a good year for Netflix.

However, 2023 was much better since Netflix managed to get more subscribers than they lost the previous year. They ended 2023 with about 260 million subscribers which is an increase of almost 39 million paying subscribers.

Despite that:

Netflix is facing a huge problem: About 41% of all Netflix users access the platform without paying.

How?

By using someone else’s account:

Put simply – More than 4 out of 10 Netflix users aren’t monetisable.

This is a huge risk for Netflix now and in the future.

Netflix Subscribers Per Region

Which are the biggest subscriber regions for Netflix?

Short answer – the United States and Canada.

A recent Netflix report shows that about 75 million of Netflix’s 260 million subscribers come from the United States and Canada.

That means those two countries alone represent about 36% of the entire Netflix subscriber base.

Here is the full breakdown of Netflix subscribers by region:

The EMEA region (Europe, Middle East, Africa) makes up almost 74 million subscribers to the platform combined.

This is actually a growing region for Netflix to take advantage of and could become their biggest region by the end of 2022.

During 2021 Netflix added over 5.2 million new paying subscribers from the EMEA region alone, growing by about 6% year on year.

Asia is also a big place of growth for the platform.

Netflix has over 33.72 million paying subscribers from Aisa. The APAC region is actually the fastest-growing region for the company worldwide.

The Asia Pacific region experienced about 2x growth over the last 3 years. In 2021 alone. The Netflix APAC region grew by over 5.8 million subscribers at a year-on-year growth rate of about 20%.

Netflix Penetration Rate By Country

What about individual countries?

The penetration rate is one of the best measurements to see how successful Netflix has been in individual countries.

The penetration rate is the percentage of the relevant total population that has purchased a Netflix subscription at least once.

These are the top 10 countries for Netflix in terms of penetration rate:

Netflix has the highest penetration rate in Australia overall.

North America has the highest penetration rate in terms of region.

These countries generally have the bulk of subscribers and revenue for the platform. But it also shows that these countries are probably reaching market saturation.

Netflix’s goal is to retain subscribers in these countries rather than grow in them.

Time Spent On Netflix

There is no doubt that Netflix has a huge amount of paying subscribers.

But how much time do these subscribers actually spend using Netflix?

The results are staggering. Netflix accounts for 25.7% of all daily video streaming among US adults. In other words…

25.7% of all US adults consume streaming content daily is on Netflix.

And usage is on the rise. The number of minutes US adults spend daily on streaming Netflix has increased by a massive 57.89% since 2017.

What about usage worldwide?

The average Netflix user spends 3.2 hours per day streaming content on Netflix.

That means that Netflix users spend an average of 13% of their entire day on the platform. Everyday.

And it’s been growing. In 2009 the average global Netflix subscriber watched for an average of just 6 minutes!

Here’s the average total amount of time people spend on Netflix every day:

Notice the big jump in 2020?

This was due to the COVID-19 pandemic. People spent much more time in their homes and therefore consumed more streaming content in general.

Although subscribers may be dropping off for Netflix, their current subscriber base is still very engaged.

Netflix User Demographics

Netflix has managed to appeal to users across different age groups and genders.

The company reported that its users are 49% women and 51% men.

This is extremely balanced for any streaming platform.

What about age?

The bulk of Netflix’s subscribers is Gen-Z & millennials.

A massive 75% of respondents to a Statista survey aged between 18 – 34 said they had a Netflix subscription.

But that doesn’t mean older people aren’t older people don’t use the platform.

44% of people aged 65 years old had an active Netflix subscription.

Netflix Content Production Statistics

Netflix produced more than 2,769 hours of original content in 2019. This was a huge 80.15% increase compared to 2018.

Netflix had over 2,000 originals at the beginning of 2021.

This can be a substantial competitive advantage – as long as the subscribers like what they produce.

Netflix spent $17 billion on video production in 2021. Here is the full breakdown of how much Netflix has spent on video production each year since 2013.

Netflix’s video production spending has been growing proportionately to their earnings year over year. Their budget has increased by 3.16x since 2015. Netflix’s content production spending grew by 35.68% from 2016 to 2020.

2021 was the first year that Netflix had a decline in video production. They spent about 300 million less than in 2020.

So how much did Netflix spend in 2022?

Netflix recently announced at its quarterly earnings presentation that they spent about $17 billion on video production in 2022.

They now have a clear focus on producing quality content of quantity, and executives expect that this will be enough to do it.

Only time will tell.

Netflix vs The Competiton

It’s no secret that Netflix now has some serious competition:

There are tons of streaming platforms available to consumers offering lots of different content. And some of these new competitors are backed by massive multi-billion dollar companies.

The truth is that most of Netflix’s competitors just copied their model and used it as a blueprint.

But the reality is that it worked, and Netflix has struggled to maintain its subscriber value – especially because Netflix is more expensive.

So the big question is can Netlfix continue to be the top dog?

Here are the latest Netflix statistics you need to know about their competition.

Netflix Is Becoming Too Expensive

The truth is that Netflix is becoming more and more expensive.

The online streaming giant has constantly increased prices since 2011. When it first launched, it was just $7.99 per month.

The premium Netflix subscription, which offers 4 screens playing simultaneously (a common plan for families), is $22.99 per month.

Netflix has turned from “value for money” to a “premium” subscription for most users.

The big problem is that Netflix is far more expensive than top competitors:

It is true that the middle plan for Netflix is only $15.99 per month. But that takes away 4k content and only allows you to stream on two simultaneous screens simultaneously.

The Lowest level Netflix plan is just $6.99 per month but doesn’t even have HD content!

In this day and age, most people have questioned if having standard definition content is worth it.

No one wants to go backwards, right?

Netflix Has The “Worst” Content

But the big definer on price is the quality of content.

Here’s the truth:

At the moment, the online streaming market is dominated by series. If you can produce great series consistently, you will hold onto your subscribers.

Unfortunately, over the last year, Netflix hasn’t been able to produce enough of them.

If you are after relevant and binge-worthy series, Netflix’s offerings have only seemed to worsen. Especially when you compare it to competitors.

That’s not to say that Netflix has no good shows. But you are paying a premium price for a lot of general content. This is directly opposite to a platform like Apple TV+, which only offers premium content.

Think of it like a quantity vs quality situation.

Other streaming platforms like Disney+ have also focussed on developing their platform content offerings.

When it first launched, Disney+ had a considerable amount of content for children but lacked quality content for adults.

They took advantage of their acquisitions of Marvel and Star Wars and have now developed Disney+ into one of the most popular online streaming platforms available.

Obi-Wan Kenobi’s recent release saw viewership skyrocketing to a reported 2.14 million US households.

This is the biggest hit series for Dinsey Plus to date.

While Netflix’s content seems to be in decline, its top competitors are only improving.

Unless they can start consistently producing the quality content their audience expects, justifying the premium subscription price will be difficult.

But Netflix Still Dominate The Market In Term Of Subscribers (For Now)

Even though Netflix declined in subscribers – They are still at the top of the streaming market (for now at least).

The below table shows how many subscribers each major streaming platform has:

Amazon Prime statistics show that Prime Video is Netflix’s most significant competition in terms of subscribers.

But that may not be the case.

Prime Video is included in most Amazon Prime subscriptions. So by default, millions of people worldwide automatically get access to Prime Video.

This doesn’t necessarily mean they spend hours watching the platform or subscribe to Amazon Prime because of the video inclusions.

Looking directly at the following three competitors, Netflix has 4x as many paying subscribers.

The truth is that these competitors still have a long way to go to catch up to Netflix.

And remember, Netflix charges a higher price than all of these competitors.

That means they should have more money to spend on content production and development. For now, Netflix is the clear winner in the online streaming industry.

Netflix Financial Statistics

How much money does Netflix actually make?

Netflix’s annual revenue was $29.69 billion in 2021. This was an 18.81% increase on 2020, where the annual revenue was $24.99 billion.

They also made $5.1 billion in net profit in 2021, which was a massive 85% increase on 2020.

As you can see, subscribers are just one side of the Netflix story.

Although Netflix subscriber rates dropped from quarter 4 of 2021 compared to quarter 1 of 2022 – revenue actually increased.

Netflix made $7.71 billion in quarter 4 of 2021. But they made $7.86 billion in quarter 1 of 2022 despite losing 200,000 subscribers.

Netflix again managed to increase its earnings in quarter 2 of 2022, generating $7.97 billion in revenue.

This is despite losing another 1 million subscribers during the same time period.

In terms of earnings – Netflix is still crushing it!

Here is the breakdown of Netflix’s revenue earnings year over year from 2011 to 2021:

Despite the huge competition, Netflix has had impressive growth in revenue year over year. In fact, the company’s “risk” of increasing prices even as they lose subscribers has paid off.

They have managed to generate more revenue and profit despite losing subscribers. It’s predicted that Netflix will make around $32 billion in 2022.

What regions are contributing the most revenue to Netflix?

Historically UCAN (the United States & Canada) has generated the most revenue for Netflix. But as competition increases in this region, the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) region is quickly catching up.

Here is how much each region contributed to Netflix’s earnings:

EMEA will become a more important part of Netflix over the next few years.

As of today, Netflix is estimated to be worth about $84.57 billion. That’s about 2.8x annual revenue.

Wrapping It Up

The latest Netflix statistics show that the platform is losing subscribers.

They face fierce competition from many other platforms that offer unique quality content for a cheaper monthly subscription.

The big question for Netflix is can they turn it around?

Short answer – yes. But it’s going to take some work.

The above statistics show that the online streaming industry is all about content. There isn’t a lot of brand loyalty to any of the platforms.

If you provide better content, you win. And if you don’t, subscribers will go elsewhere.

It’s as simple as that.

Netflix has the experience and knows how to produce quality content people love. But whether they can continuously do it to justify their premium subscription will be the key to their future success.

Now I want to hear from you. What do you think about the future of Netflix?

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