Netflix said Tuesday it would increase the cost of most of its subscription packages in the US and Canada having announced 19 million new members in the final quarter of 2024.
Netflix’s largest-ever subscriber growth puts the streaming behemoth at 302 million worldwide, securing its position as the market leader.
The Mike Tyson and Jake Paul boxing battle in November, which the streaming service said attracted 108 million viewers globally and was the most-streamed athletic event ever, was credited with the site’s most recent triumph.
Two NFL games were later streamed on Netflix on Christmas Day, with an average of 30 million viewers worldwide, making them the most-streamed football games ever.
In addition, the popularity of “Squid Game” season two—the platform’s largest debut to date, with 68 million views in its first week—boosted subscriptions. Earlier this month, Monday night WWE “Raw” live broadcasts were also introduced to Netflix.
With the price hikes announced Tuesday, a normal monthly membership without ads would cost $17.99 instead of $15.49 and a standard account with ads would cost $7.99 instead of $15.49. It will raise the price of its most expensive premium tier, which comes with 4K video quality, by $2 to $24.99.
In a letter to investors, the company stated, “We will periodically ask our members to pay a little more so that we can re-invest to further improve Netflix as we continue to invest in programming and deliver more value for our members.”
As streaming services continue to raise monthly fees and encourage users to switch to more affordable ad-supported plans to boost profitability, this price increase is the most recent for consumers. Disney, Max, Peacock, Apple, and others have all increased their prices in recent years. In 2022, Netflix last raised the cost of its basic package.
Operating income came to $2.3 billion, a 52% year-over-year rise, while revenue climbed 16% to surpass $10 billion for the first time in the company’s history on Tuesday. Additionally, Netflix declared a $15 billion stock repurchase. Tuesday afternoon, the announcement caused shares to jump 13%.
During the company’s investor call, Netflix co-chief executive Ted Sarandos highlighted the streaming service’s recent success with live athletic events.
“Even in a fantastic quarter with three major live events—two NFL games, an amazing fight, and one of our biggest TV series ever in ‘Squid Game’ season two—all of these events and titles were extremely successful, and we are very happy about them,” Sarandos stated.
Sarandos noted that the business will keep looking to sports and live events for expansion.
“We would look into any avenue where we could genuinely make the economics work for the league and ourselves,” Sarandos stated. “But, at the moment, we think that the live events industry is where we truly want to be, and sports are a big part of that, but it is part of growth.”
Netflix will no longer publicly release its premium membership numbers quarterly after Tuesday’s earnings. Rather, the business announced that it would start releasing an “engagement report” with updates every two years.
Netflix’s dominance in the streaming market is solidified by the increase in paid subscribers. To compete with Netflix, legacy media giants have spent billions of dollars in recent years to develop their streaming services as their old broadcast and cable operations become less viable.
Warner Bros., the parent company of CNN, and Disney are among the challengers. Rivals have found it difficult to match Netflix’s market dominance, while Discovery recently achieved profitability in the streaming industry for the first time.
“With our focus and sustained investment, we have good and improving product/market fit around the world,” Netflix stated in its earnings report, adding that it is fortunate not to be distracted by things like managing dwindling linear networks.
