Netflix Adds 5 Million Subscribers

As Hubbl announced a new combined Kayo Sports and Netflix streaming bundle for Australia, Netflix released its third-quarter earnings which confirmed that it added more than 5 million customers in the quarter, sending its share price up as much as 5.4 per cent to $724.89 (A$1082.41) in after-hours trading on Thursday.

The company finished the quarter with 282.7 million subscribers worldwide. The streaming major’s upward streak this year has continued after adding 9.33 million subscribers in the first quarter, and another 8.05 million subscribers in the second quarter. Netflix has already confirmed that it will stop reporting subscriber numbers and average revenue per member beginning in the first quarter of 2025.

Two regions — Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and the Asia-Pacific — accounted for almost all of the company’s new customers in the latest quarter. However, Netflix lost customers in Latin America. New subscribers in the current, fourth quarter will exceed the third-quarter total, the company added.

Sales for the third quarter grew 15 per cent to $9.83 billion (A$14.68 billion). Netflix predicted sales next year will increase between 11 per cent – 13 per cent to as much as $44 billion (A$65.7 billion) — through a mix of new members and price increases. It will increase prices in Spain and Italy this week, and said it will phase out one of its cheaper-priced plans in Brazil later this quarter.

Netflix’s share price has more than quadrupled since May 2022. Since then, Netflix has added more than 60 million customers as it continued to crack down on password sharing and introduced lower-priced ad-supported subscription with advertising.

Netflix launched its ad-supported plan in 12 markets in November 2022. In Australia, its ad-supported plan is its cheapest and costs A$7.99, compared to the similar plan without ads that costs A$18.99 a month, while the top-tier Premium Plan which is also without ads and offers 4K + HDR content is available for A$25.99 per month.

The company announced earlier this year that it will launch an in-house advertising technology platform by the end of 2025.

Partners that advertisers can use to measure and verify the impact of their campaigns include Affinity Solutions, DoubleVerify, EDO Inc, Integral Ad Science, iSpotTV, Kantar, Lucid, NCSolutions, Nielsen and TVision.

It is also expanding its buying capabilities to include The Trade Desk, Google’s Display & Video 360, and Magnite who will join Microsoft as the main programmatic partners for advertisers.

In a new direction for the company, Netflix has begun to invest in live programming which will likely attract significant advertisers. It will offer a live boxing match in November, followed by two National Football League games on Christmas Day. From next year, it will offer customers three hours of live wrestling every week too.