Netflix Revenues Jump 15 Percent as Subscriptions Hit 270 Million

Netflix earned a net income of $2.3 billion on revenues of $9.4 billion in the quarter ending March 31. Those figures are up 56 and 15 percent, respectively, while the firm’s paid subscriber based soared 16 percent, or by 9.3 million members, to 270 million.

“We’re off to a good start in 2024,” a Netflix letter to shareholders explains. “We have built a hard to replicate combination of a strong slate, superior recommendations, broad reach and intense fandom, which drives healthy engagement on Netflix. Improvement in these key areas is the best way to delight our members and continue to grow our business.”

Looking at the quarter, Netflix cited the success of prestige drama series like Griselda, with 66.4 million views, and 3 Body Problem, with 39.7 million views; the animated series ‌ Avatar: The Last Airbender (63.8 million views), and the true-crime series American Nightmare (50.2 million views) as some of the key standouts.

Netflix says that it now has subscribers in almost 270 million homes across over 190 countries, and a total audience of over half a billion people. But its growth possibilities are almost endless: Its share of TV viewing is less than 10 percent in every country it serves, and it will continue to produce and acquire content to drive that growth. That said, the company has also reached the point where its focus can change.

That is, to date, Netflix has focused on subscriber growth, but with the firm generating “very substantial profit and free cash flow,” it has shifted to emphasizing profits. And its strategy of diversifying its subscription plans with more ad-supported tiers and cracking down on password sharing seems to be working.

Tied to this, Netflix will no longer report quarterly subscriber gains and average revenue per user starting in one year. It will, however, continue expanding its reporting of subscriber engagement, a metric it says its competitors remain curiously quiet about.