Netflix ended 2024 with 302 million global subscribers and an annual operating income exceeding $10 billion for the first time in the company’s history, the streaming giant said on Tuesday.
The company said those results were buoyed by programming in recent months that surpassed internal expectations: Season two of “Squid Game” will be one of the company’s most-watched original seasons ever; “Carry-On” landed in the platform’s Top 10 most-viewed movies; and both the “Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson” fight and the N.F.L. games racked up huge audiences.
Netflix added 19 million new subscribers in the final quarter of the year, its biggest rise in a single quarter yet. Revenue jumped 16 percent in the latest quarter, and net income rose to $1.87 billion.
The company also said on Tuesday that it had increased prices across most plans in the United States, Canada, Portugal and Argentina. The standard membership increased to $17.99 from $15.49 while the price for the standard with ads rose a dollar, to $7.99. Premium memberships increased $2, to $24.99, and adding an extra member to your account went from $7.99 to $8.99.
Shares in the company rose about 14.5 percent in after-hours trading.
Netflix’s subscribers watch seven films a month on average, the company said. In addition to “Carry On,” original films that performed well on the service included Richard Curtis’s “That Christmas,” and Tyler Perry’s “The Six Triple Eight.” “It Ends With Us,” a film from Sony Pictures that generated many headlines because of conflicts between the film’s two stars, Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, also generated big audiences for the service.
“No single title drives our acquisition or engagement,” co-chief executive Greg Peters said on a call with investors on Tuesday. “It’s really the whole service that’s working that delivered the upside that we saw this quarter.”
Though its recent entry into live programming has yielded some of its largest subscriber numbers, the company reiterated that it was “not focusing on acquiring rights to larger season sports packages.” Ted Sarandos, the company’s other co-chief executive, called full season sports acquisitions “extremely challenging,” during the call with investors.
The company has a history, though, of abruptly changing its strategy. “Two of Netflix’s official 2025 priorities are increasing ad revenue and developing more live programming,” said Ross Benes, senior analyst with EMarketer. “What was recently anathema is now among the company’s top priorities. Expect the company to continue adapting by embracing strategies that it said it wouldn’t.”
Just a quarter ago, Mr. Sarandos reaffirmed his lack of interest in the theatrical space. Yet, last week the company confirmed that it would release the “Barbie” filmmaker Greta Gerwig’s upcoming film “Narnia” in the 368 IMAX theaters in the United States, plus additional locations worldwide for at least two weeks at the end of 2026 — a development that other filmmakers will probably now clamor for.
Mr. Sarandos said the IMAX partnership did not reflect a different strategy but rather a “release tactic” meant to “prime the publicity pump” similar to what Netflix did for Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out” sequel, “Glass Onion.” He added, “I doubt anyone has a screen as big as an IMAX screen at home, so it is kind of a differentiated consumer experience.”
The release strategy was holding up the start of production for Narnia, which is based on the novels by C.S. Lewis, something Mr. Sarandos is relieved to have solved. “We’re superexcited to get it into production so we can talk about how great this movie is, more so than which screens it’s on,” he said.
Highlights for the upcoming year will include new seasons of “Squid Game,” “Wednesday” and “Stranger Things,” 52 weeks of WWE programming, John Mulaney’s new variety talk show, more N.F.L. on Christmas and new films including the third installment of “Knives Out,” “Happy Gilmore 2,” “Kinda Pregnant” starring Amy Schumer and a new “Frankenstein” from Guillermo del Toro.
The post Netflix Adds 19 Million Subscribers in Latest Quarter appeared first on New York Times.
