Netflix's global subscriber base has reached an impressive milestone, surpassing 300 million paid subscribers worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2024. This marks a significant increase of nearly 20 million subscribers compared to the previous quarter, solidifying Netflix's position as a dominant force in the streaming industry. Adapting to customer losses Netflix's growth has not always been consistent. During the first half of 2022, the streaming giant lost over one million customers. In response to these losses, Netflix introduced an ad-supported tier in November of that same year. This strategic move has paid off, with the lower-cost plan attracting 70 million monthly active users globally by November 2024, demonstrating Netflix's ability to adapt to changing market conditions and consumer preferences. Global expansion Netflix continues to focus on international markets, with a forecast suggesting that the Asia Pacific region is expected to see the most substantial growth in the upcoming years, potentially reaching around 70.1 million subscribers by 2029. To correspond to the needs of the non-American target group, the company has heavily invested in international content in recent years, with Korean, Spanish, and Japanese being the most watched non-English content languages on the platform.

Netflix reported 89.6 million paid streaming subscribers across the United States and Canada in the fourth quarter of 2024. This marked a growth of over nine million compared with the same quarter of the previous year. Why is Netflix losing subscribers? The EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa) region is Netflix's top-performing market in terms of subscribers, surpassing North America in the third quarter of 2022 for the first time. The company reported losing an estimated one million users worldwide in the second quarter of 2022, with the number of Netflix users standing at approximately 221 million that quarter. But why have audiences canceled their subscriptions? One reason for the unprecedented drop in account holders is Netflix's monthly fee, which has been increasing rapidly over the past few years. On top of that, viewers have also voiced criticism over Netflix's cancellation of popular shows and its lack of big movie franchises. What are audiences watching? Netflix's vast content library offers anything from reality TV to Hollywood blockbusters, with shows and movies delivered in many languages. As of mid-2024, European countries such as Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Slovenia boasted the largest content catalogs on Netflix. In the U.S., where audiences could choose from approximately 6,900 titles, “NCIS” and “Suits” ranked among the most popular streaming series on Netflix in 2023. As of that year, fan favorites “Stranger Things” and “3 Body Problem” were the most expensive Netflix original series, with production costs of 30 and 20 million U.S. dollars per episode, respectively.

The number of Netflix viewers in the United States was reportedly expected to reach 174.7 million as of 2021, and is forecast to increase annually. By the year 2025, it is projected that there will be over 188 million people in the U.S. watching content on the video on demand platform.

Overview

Streaming Services Statistics: Streaming services have transformed the entertainment landscape, revolutionizing how people consume content.

The advent of high-speed internet and the proliferation of smart devices have fueled the growth of these platforms, offering a wide array of movies, TV shows, music, and more, at the viewers' convenience.

This introduction provides an overview of key statistics that shed light on the impact, trends, and challenges within the streaming industry.

Netflix is distinctly more popular with younger consumers in the United States than with older generations. According to the findings of a recent survey, around 75 percent of respondents aged 18 to 34 subscribed to Netflix as of mid-2021, compared to just 44 percent of those aged 65 or above.

Netflix predicts further subscriber loss

Netflix is the most popular subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service worldwide. Millions of viewers from various demographics access the platform each day, but despite its availability in over 190 countries and its ever-expanding content catalog, Netflix reported a subscriber loss of around 200 thousand in the first quarter of 2022. It was the first time in over a decade that the streamer experienced a drop in user numbers, but according to the company, this downward trend might very well continue in the second quarter of the year. According to company reports, Netflix expects to lose an additional two million subscribers by mid-2022.

Cracking down on password sharing

Credential sharing has become an essential part of the video-on-demand (VOD) experience. Companies can stand out in today’s crowded streaming space by offering viewers to create multiple profiles and split subscription costs with other people in their household – which might be particularly appealing to younger audiences. Netflix is one of the first services to have provided multiple subscription options at various price tiers, but even so, the company has also acknowledged that millions of people share their login data without paying for additional accounts. In 2021, Netflix was estimated to have lost over 1.07 billion U.S. dollars in revenue due to password sharing. In 2022, the company reacted by announcing to charge additional sub-account fees for people streaming content outside the primary account holder’s household.

Industry data revealed that Slovakia had the most extensive Netflix media library worldwide as of July 2024, with over 8,500 titles available on the platform. Interestingly, the top 10 ranking was spearheaded by European countries. Where do you get the most bang for your Netflix buck? In February 2024, Liechtenstein and Switzerland were the countries with the most expensive Netflix subscription rates. Viewers had to pay around 21.19 U.S. dollars per month for a standard subscription. Subscribers in these countries could choose from between around 6,500 and 6,900 titles. On the other end of the spectrum, Pakistan, Egypt, and Nigeria are some of the countries with the cheapest Netflix subscription costs at around 2.90 to 4.65 U.S. dollars per month. Popular content on Netflix While viewing preferences can differ across countries and regions, some titles have proven particularly popular with international audiences. As of mid-2024, "Red Notice" and "Don't Look Up" were the most popular English-language movies on Netflix, with over 230 million views in its first 91 days available on the platform. Meanwhile, "Troll" ranks first among the top non-English language Netflix movies of all time. The monster film has amassed 103 million views on Netflix, making it the most successful Norwegian-language film on the platform to date.

In 2024, Netflix revealed that it had 89.63 million paying streaming subscribers in the United States and Canada. North America had long been Netflix's biggest market, though subscriber numbers in the EMEA region surpassed that in the U.S. and Canada for the first time during 2022. The number of paid streaming memberships in Asia Pacific grew the most, by 13 percent compared with the previous year.

The dataset comprises the 20 countries with the greatest increases in the volume of average daily VPN searches in March and April 2020. For each country, the trends in search volume for VPN terms subsequent to the initial spike were also recorded every seven days aftewards.

This statistic illustrates the share of people who used Netflix in the past 12 months in the United States in 2023. The results were sorted by age. As of March 2023, 72 percent of respondents aged 18 to 29 years stated they used Netflix in the past 12 months.

The timeline presents the estimate number of active streaming subscribers to Netflix in Malaysia from 2017 to 2020. According to the calculations, Netflix will have more than 336 thousand subscribers in Malaysia in 2020.

Netflix continues to dominate the UK streaming landscape, with 17.1 million households subscribing to the service in the fourth quarter of 2024. This marks a significant increase from 16.7 million subscribers in the same period of the previous year, demonstrating the platform's enduring popularity despite fierce competition in the video-on-demand landscape. Netflix's competitors While Netflix remains the leading subscription video-on-demand service in the UK in terms of customer numbers, Amazon Prime Video boasts the largest content library among major SVOD platforms, with over 42.6 thousand hours of content available as of May 2024. However, when it comes to market share based on user interest, Netflix still holds the top spot, edging out providers such as Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and Apple TV+. Demographic preferences Interestingly, streaming preferences vary across age groups. Among viewers aged 65 and above, Amazon Prime Video is the preferred choice in the UK for 36 percent, while Netflix captures one-third of this demographic. This contrasts with the overall market dominance of Netflix, suggesting that older audiences may have different content preferences. The generational divide in streaming habits is further illustrated by data from Flanders in Belgium, where millennials show a slightly higher Netflix usage rate compared to Gen Z, both significantly outpacing older age groups.

The action comedy film “Red Notice” was the most popular English-language Netflix movie of all time as of January 2025, based on the number of views in its first 91 days on Netflix. The film counted nearly 231 million views. The second most popular movie, “Don't Look Up,” reached about 60 million fewer views than “Red Notice.” “The Adam Project,” starring Ryan Reynolds, ranked third in popularity with roughly 158 million views.

According to a recent study conducted in the U.S., Netflix's latest plan addition, basic with ads, accounted for 30 percent of the total amount of sign-ups to the streaming service in September 2023, up from 10 percent of sign-ups recorded in November 2022, when the ad-supported plan was launched. In comparison, most of the sign-ups were reported by standard subscribers, with a share of 42 percent. The basic plan declined in popularity until Netflix removed this option entirely.

In 2020, there were around 18 million Canadians using Netflix via app or website at least once per month, up from 16.2 million users the previous year. Between 2018 and 2019 the number of Netflix users in Canada increased by nearly three million, with 16.2 million Canadians using Netflix in 2019. The numbers are expected to steadily grow and it has been estimated that by 2025 there will be over 19 million Netflix users in Canada.

Netflix was introduced to Canadian audiences in 2010. By the end of 2011, the online video platform had 1.14 million paying subscribers, and four years later the number was to be roughly four times bigger. With such paying subscriber growth, Netflix revenue was also estimated to increase from 115 million Canadian dollars in 2011 to approximately 447 million in 2015. Geographically, Alberta was the province with the highest penetration of Netflix subscriptions - more than half of the population in the region were subscribing to the video service in 2015. On a national scale, the online video platform was believed to reach 47 percent of the Anglophone Canadian population and 19 percent of the Francophones in the country in early 2015.

This statistic shows the number of Netflix subscribers in India in 2014 and 2015, as well as a forecast until 2025. The source projected that there would be more than 2.3 million Netflix subscribers in India in 2020.

During the third quarter of 2024, the Netflix mobile app amassed around 5.6 million downloads from users in the United States, up by almost six percent when compared to the previous quarter. Between 2016 and 2023, the app for the popular film and series streaming platform has experienced uneven download trends, with more than 13 million downloads during the first quarter of 2016. In October 2022, the popular entertainment platform announced the release of a new ad-supported subscription plan starting from November 2022.

In 2024, the total revenue of the video streaming platform Netflix amounted to approximately 39 billion U.S. dollars, having grown from 5.5 billion U.S. dollars a decade ago. The American media company's net income in 2023 stood at 8.7 billion U.S. dollars, with a total of 14,000 employees working at the company worldwide. The fiscal year end of the company is December 31. Netflix annual revenue – additional information Netflix has been very successful in the last few years. The company not only leads the subscription streaming market in the U.S., but is effectively expanding its service outside North America. Along with gaining numerous subscribers worldwide, Netflix has managed to produce and distribute high-profile original shows, such as "House of Cards" and "Orange is the New Black," challenging traditional TV networks like HBO and CBS. In 2023, Netflix’s original programs received 103 Emmy Awards nominations, around double the number of nominations received seven years previously. These are just a few indicators of Netflix’s success, which can be measured in a number of ways. Firstly, as seen in the statistic, Netflix’s annual revenue has consistently increased over the years, reaching the highest figure to date in 2023 – 33.7 billion U.S. dollars. This figure is around 10 times higher than Netflix’s annual revenue a decade ago. Netflix's originals The time that consumers dedicate to watching Netflix content is another way of indicating success. One of Netflix’s strategies has been to release TV series in bulk, so consumers are able to binge watch their favorite shows. Indeed, Netflix accounts for the highest share of most in-demand originals among global video streaming services. As a result, Netflix's streaming content obligations have increased from 1.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2010 to over 20 billion U.S. dollars in 2023.

As of September 2024, all streaming services accounted for 41 percent of total TV screen time in the United States. Netflix made up 7.9 percent of the whole viewing time, slightly up from 7.8 percent recorded in the same period of the previous year.

The content spending of Netflix worldwide amounted to around 16.2 billion U.S. dollars in 2024, down from a targeted 17 billion U.S. dollars. According to estimates, Netflix's expenditures on content will likely grow to roughly 18 billion U.S. dollars in 2025. Netflix leads SVOD original content spending A forecast suggests that Netflix spent around seven billion U.S. dollars on its own originals in 2023, ranking fifth among global media companies after Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount, and Comcast. However, with a share of over 25 percent, the streaming giant accounts for the highest amount of SVOD original content spending worldwide. Slowdown in content investments Aside from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when Netflix’s content spending fell, its investments in content have steadily increased every year. Production costs of originals, such as “Stranger Things” and “The Crown,” are reaching ever new heights. But the company is expected to plateau its content budget for the next few years, and it is not the only streaming provider that needs to keep their costs low. Following a net loss of over one billion U.S. dollars in its direct-to-consumer segment in Q1 2023, Disney announced in February 2023 that it would be slashing five billion U.S. dollars in costs, including both content and non-content cuts, in order to make its streaming business profitable.

Video streaming giant Netflix had a total net income of nearly 8.7 billion U.S. dollars in 2024, whilst the company's annual revenue reached around 39 billion U.S. dollars. Six years earlier, at the end of 2018, the figure stood at 139 million subscribers. The fiscal year end of the company is December 31. The growth of Netflix Netflix was launched in the United States in 1998, functioning as a digital DVD rental store and placing itself squarely in competition with Blockbuster. The company launched its streaming video service in 2007, and just over a decade later Netflix secured the title of the streaming service with the most subscribers in the world. Investing in own content Netflix now offers a wealth of original content as well as content from niche and emerging directors, multiple foreign-language movies and a significant amount of highly-acclaimed and popular films from Hollywood and other markets. Netflix’s worldwide video content budget surpassed 17 billion U.S. dollars in 2023, marking a nearly three-fold increase since 2016. The streaming platform has become known for its many original shows reaching fans across the globe, including "Stranger Things," "Orange is the New Black," and "13 Reasons Why."