Netflix Revenues Up 2.7 Percent, Paid New Subscribers Up 8 Percent

As part of its latest quarterly earnings, Netflix today announced that revenues were up 2.7 percent as it added 5.7 million subscribers. But the results were below Wall Street expectations, sending its share price down 5 percent.

Netflix posted a net income of $1.49 billion on revenues of $8.19 billion for the quarter ending June 30.

“In May, we successfully launched paid sharing in 100+ countries, representing more than 80 percent of our revenue base,” a Netflix shareholders letter reads. “Paid net additions were 5.9 million in Q2, and today we’re rolling out paid sharing to almost all of the remaining countries.”

Netflix now has 238.39 million paid subscribers, up from 220.67 in the year-ago quarter, a gain of 8 percent. The firm is obviously a leader in the streaming video market, but with increased competition from Disney and Max, it has stumbled a bit in recent quarters.

To drive future growth, Netflix instituted paid sharing, which lets account holders share their subscriptions for $7.99 per month per user. And it gained a new advantage over competitors because its global product helps it overcome the U.S.-based shutdowns triggered by the Hollywood writers and actors strikes.

“Now that we’ve launched paid sharing broadly, we have increased confidence in our financial outlook,” Netflix said. “We expect revenue growth will accelerate in the second half of 2023 as monetization grows from our most recent paid sharing launch and we expand our initiative across nearly all remaining countries plus the continued steady growth in our ad-supported plan.”