Netflix reported approximately 90 million subscribers across the U.S. and Canada in the fourth quarter of 2024, making North America its second-largest global market after Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). Netflix reports its first subscriber loss in decades After a decline in the number of paid Netflix subscribers worldwide during the first two quarters of 2022, the streaming giant seems to be back on track, adding over 30 million net subscribers in only one year. The United States and Canada experienced the most substantial combined subscriber loss, which is particularly noteworthy considering that Netflix generates the highest average monthly revenue per user (ARPU) in these countries. When asked about the main reasons for canceling their subscription, many former Netflix users listed the price as their main incentive for leaving. The service’s average monthly fee has increased significantly over the past few years, leading audiences to switch to more affordable (ad-supported) video streaming options or cut down on subscriptions altogether. Expanding global influence and content catalogs Netflix remains the leading subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service worldwide, outperforming all other international streaming powerhouses and local providers by a significant margin. To maintain its global lead, Netflix allocates impressive sums toward marketing while also expanding its regional content. In 2021, for example, the Seattle-based company opened its first office in Stockholm to serve as a hub for the Nordics region. In addition to that, Netflix also produces more original content outside the U.S. to appeal to its diverse international user base.

Forecasts made in late 2017 suggest that by 2023 the United States will have the highest number of Netflix subscribers in the world, with sources anticipating a total of 69.1 million subscribers in the country by this time. Given that the United States was the leading Netflix market worldwide in 2018 with over 64 percent of digital video viewers watching Netflix at least once per month, the predictions for 2023 could indeed come to fruition.

Following closely behind will be the United Kingdom with around 12 million subscribers, whereas Mexico, France and India are all expected to have fewer than six million Netflix subscribers by 2023.

Netflix’s global position

With a wealth of original content flooding onto the platform every month, Netflix has established itself not only as an industry leader when it comes to sourcing existing content for its subscribers to enjoy, but also in terms of its dedication to creating quality shows of its own. Some of the most successful shows in the market include Netflix originals, such as ‘Orange is the New Black’ and ‘Stranger Things’.

According to its company reports, Netflix’s worldwide subscribers in early 2019 amounted to over 155 million, more than triple the number recorded five years earlier. As well a subscriber increase, the company also announced further growth in its average monthly revenue per paying customer worldwide. Estimates foresee a growth in Netflix subscribers not only in North America and Western Europe, but also a surge in Netflix subscribers in Latin America over the coming years, as well as significant increases in developing markets.

The United Kingdom (UK) has the highest number of Netflix subscribers in Europe, with around 13 million subscribers as of the second quarter of 2010. The country with the second highest number was Germany with around 10.7 million, closely followed by France with 8.4 million.

Netflix catalogues across Europe

Not only does the UK have the highest number of Netflix subscribers in Europe, it’s also the country with the highest number of TV series on the SVoD (Subscription Video-on-Demand) platform. As of September 2019, there were 542 series available in the UK but just 350 in Germany.  

SVoD market share

 At 39 percent, Netflix had the largest share of the SVoD market in Europe in 2020. Their closest competitor was Amazon Prime Video, which had over a quarter of the market share in Europe that year. The fourth largest and one of the newest services, Disney+, reached a market share of seven percent. In the European Union, its revenue amounted to nearly 365 million euros as of 2020.

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.

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.

Despite the United States being Netflix’s leading market in terms of subscriber numbers, Australia and the United Kingdom had higher penetration rates. In 2022, 65 percent of Australian and 57 percent of UK households used the subscription video-on-demand service.

Spotlight on Netflix in the U.S.

The United States is not only the place where Netflix got its start as a DVD rental service in 1997, but the country also remains Netflix’s largest market now that the company has evolved into the most popular SVOD platform worldwide. According to the company’s latest filings, the number of Netflix subscribers in the U.S. and Canada stood at 73.4 million in the third quarter of 2022, after Europe, the Middle East, and Africa combined.

Netflix is losing subscribers

Netflix lost an estimated 300 thousand subscribers globally during the first two quarters of 2022. The number of Netflix subscribers dropped from 221.84 million to 220.7 million in the first half of 2022, marking the first dip in over a decade. One of the reasons for this rapid subscriber loss could undoubtedly be the streamer’s monthly fees, which have been increasing over the past few years. Netflix already announced to add a cheaper ad-supported subscription option in November 2022, but only time will tell if this move will be enough to combat the current trend.

This statistic illustrates a forecast of the number of Netflix paying streaming subscribers in selected countries in the Asia-Pacific region as of December 2015. The source projected that there would be an estimated 275 thousand Netflix paying streaming subscribers in Japan as of December 2015. In 2014, the United States was by far the largest Netflix market, with 36.27 million paying streaming subscribers.

Among Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, Poland had the most Netflix subscribers at roughly 1.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. Romania and Czechia ranked second and third with subscriber numbers of around 481 thousand and 472 thousand, respectively.

By 2026, around 86 million Europeans are forecast to have a Netflix subscription. In 2020 this figure stood at just below 60 million Netflix subscribers in Europe. As of the first quarter of 2021, Netflix had almost 210 million paying subscribers worldwide.

History of Netflix Netflix was founded in the United States in 1997, offering media through online streams or through a DVD-by-mail service. Now, the service is available across more than 190 countries globally and boasts revenues of almost 25 billion U.S. dollars. As of the first quarter of 2020, its leading markets included the U.S., Brazil, and the UK, although it is popular across many European countries.

Video-on-Demand Despite some European countries having access to as many as around 600 legal options for Video-on-Demand services, in terms of use there are two clear front runners. As of 2020, Netflix held a market share of almost 40 percent of the Subscription Video-on-Demand services in the EU, while Amazon came second with about a third of the market.

Netflix was estimated to reach 2.6 million subscriptions in Africa by the end of 2021, accounting for about half of the subscribers of streaming on demand in Africa. In 2026, the number of subscribers is projected to double, reaching 5.8 million.

A forecast projected that over 35 million of Netflix's subscribers will be using the ad-supported tier worldwide by 2027, up from an estimated 400,000 in 2022. The EMEA region is projected to surpass the number of ad-supported subscribers in the U.S. and Canada by 2026, amassing 9.4 million customers that year. After losing a substantial number of customers at the beginning of 2022, the streaming giant announced the launch of an ad-supported tier at the end of the year to offset more subscriber and income losses.

It was estimated that, by the end of 2023, the number of subscribers of Netflix in Latin America will have surpassed 40 million. It is further expected that Netflix will gather more than 52 million subscribers in the region at the end of 2027.

According to a 2022 survey, among selected European countries representing Netflix's largest European markets, password sharing is most common in Spain, where nearly half of subscriber households share their password with someone outside of that household. Germany followed with 42 percent of Netflix households sharing their SVOD credentials.

This statistic illustrates the number of Netflix paying streaming subscribers in Brazil from the December 2011 to September 2014 and a forecast thereof for 2023. As of September 2014, there was an estimated 2.17 million Netflix paying streaming subscribers in Brazil.

This chart shows data on the amount of content available on Netflix in selected countries as of January 2016, by content type. At that point in time, there were 2,411 movies and 555 series available on Netflix in Ireland.

Content available on Netflix – additional information

In order to maintain its competitive edge in the streaming market, Netflix heavily relies on its content, offering a large base of videos for its subscribers. Over the last years, the company has significantly increased its investment in content, as Netflix’s streaming content obligations jumped from 1.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2010 to 10.9 billion U.S. dollars in 2015. Content obligations of less than one year and of one to three years account for the majority of this total. The streaming costs of acquired programming have also increased drastically since 2012, and are forecast to rise to 3.9 billion U.S. dollars in 2017.

The number of videos available on Netflix depends on the country the service is being provided. It can vary from 5,680 – number of videos available on Netflix for American subscribers as of January 2016 – to 643 videos - number of videos available for United Arab Emirates’ subscribers. This figure includes both series and movies. The United States has the largest base of content available on Netflix, followed by Brazil and Mexico.

In terms of costs, there are two types of content on Netflix: original series and acquired content. The cost of Netflix’s original series is rather low in comparison to the acquisition costs. For instance, nearly 90 million U.S. dollars were spent on original series in 2013, while expenditure of acquired programming in the same year added up to 2.3 billion U.S. dollars. Netflix's investment in original series has paid off, helping the company secure its place in this industry among television giants such as HBO and NBC. From 2013 to 2015, Netflix received a total of 78 Emmy Awards nominations for its original programs, winning 12 of them. Some of Netflix Emmy Award winners include the series ‘House Of Cards’ and ‘Orange Is The New Black’, and the documentary 'The Square'.

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.

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.

As of December 31, 2019 Netflix had approximately 2.15 million DVD subscribers in the United States, down from 2.71 a year earlier. The company also had 106.05 million subscribers in countries outside the United States, but the U.S. remained Netflix's biggest market. In 2012, Netflix changed its reporting of subscriber figures. Historical figures can be found here.

The number of Netflix subscribers in all Benelux countries increased from the first quarter to the second quarter of 2021. To give an example, the SVoD platform grew its subscriber base in the Netherlands by 10,000 during this period. Additionally, the number is estimated to increase further reaching over 2.8 million by the end of the year.

Liechtenstein and Switzerland were the most expensive place in the world to get Netflix, with a monthly standard subscription costing 21.19 U.S. dollars as of February 2024. In Denmark, the monthly price for a Netflix subscription amounted to 16.17 U.S. dollars, and French subscribers paid 14.28 U.S. dollars per month to use the standard plan of the streaming service.