- Netflix has released its Q4 2023 report, stating that it has added 13.12 million new subscribers and met its key financial objectives for the year. This new addition brings its total subscribers to 260 million.
- Notably, the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region contributed 5.05 million subscribers to the additions.
- Netflix reported a 12% revenue increase in Q4 2023, a 6% increase from 2022, and 2% higher than expected. However, the streaming giant had 7.66 million additions in Q4 2022.
This news comes after Netflix expanded its crackdown on password sharing early last year, rolling out a paid option for those who want to share their account.
Given that the platform's revenue increased every quarter and continued to rise, 2023 was a significant year, with 12.5% YoY growth at the end of the year. Additionally, the platform reported that its 13.12 million paid net additions constituted its "largest Q4 ever."
Netflix's Q4 growth highlights the benefits of its paid sharing feature, recent price changes, and the business's strength, driven by a strong slate.
"At this stage, paid sharing is our normal course of business — creating a much bigger base from which we can grow and enabling us to more effectively penetrate the near-term addressable market of ~500M connected TV households (excluding China and Russia), which should increase over time as broadband penetration rises," Netflix said.
Amidst the surge in subscribers, Netflix hints it will occasionally ask users to pay a little extra for the improvements on the platform.
Also, as Netflix's ad membership grew in Q4 2023, the company announced plans to phase out its Basic Plan, which was introduced in November 2022, in some of its ad markets, starting with Canada and the United Kingdom in Q2 2024.
Netflix recently announced that World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) Raw will premiere on the platform in January 2025, beginning in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Latin America and expanding from there. Besides, Netflix plans to include SmackDown, NXT, Wrestlemania, SummerSlam, and Royal Rumble.
Per a report, "WWE has over 36 million viewers in 180 countries, with 1.5 billion social media followers, 800 million homes reached through television programming, 35 billion YouTube views, and more than $1 billion annual revenue generated from its streaming service alone."
Thus, adding WWE to Netflix may boost ad reach and subscriber growth.
Be the smartest in the room
Give it a try, you can unsubscribe anytime. Privacy Policy.
Meanwhile, in December 2023, the streaming platform released a 6-month comprehensive list, "What We Watched: A Netflix Engagement," that shows subscribers' watch lists between January and June 2023.
The report covering over 18,000 titles revealed that subscribers on Netflix had around 100 billion hours of view time.
In 2023, MultiChoice-owned streaming service Showmax overtook Netflix in the African market share rankings. Netflix reportedly controlled 35% of the African market in November 2023, while Showmax now holds 40%.
On January 15, 2024, Showmax announced new prices and said February 12, 2024, is the launch date for New Showmax, its revamped video streaming platform. Additionally, it is bringing mobile-only subscriptions for Premier League content alongside Showmax 2.0.
On the other hand, Amazon Prime Video, the third largest streaming platform in Africa, is cutting jobs and reducing local content production in sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa to streamline operations and focus on European markets. Consequently, Amazon will stop accepting local content but display approved content.
