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It’s been a rollercoaster couple of years for Netflix.
After revealing it had lost 200,000 subscribers in Q1 2022 alone – a report that led to the biggest single drop in the company’s stock, ever – Netflix lost another million subscribers in Q2.
Compared to the previous year, the streaming giant’s revenue was also down, for the first time in a decade. Inflation, piracy, and account-sharing were rife – and Netflix was footing the bill.
Then, things changed. Fuelled by a crackdown on the sharing of accounts, Netflix’s stock, in June 2023, was up 15 per cent – and, when it comes to subscribers (238.4 million worldwide) and net profit (US$2.8 billion in the first half of 2023, and counting), the world’s most popular streaming service is on track for a record year.
So what’s the story with Netflix? We’re diving deep into the data to find out.
Independent Advisor’s researchers have pulled together all the latest Netflix statistics – from its latest subscriber and net profit figures to the regions it’s most popular in – to chart its ongoing dominance of the streaming service scene.
In which country does Netflix offer the most bang for your buck? What’s the most watched movie on Netflix to date? And how much of its content is actually original?
Let’s find out.
Globally – and as of Q2 2023 – Netflix has around 238.4 million subscribers. And every year since 2011, this number has increased (Statista).
Let’s dive into Netflix’s total subscriber figures, taken from Q2 each year, over the last 12.5 years.
| 2011 | 21.5 million |
| 2012 | 25.71 million |
| 2013 | 35.63 million |
| 2014 | 47.99 million |
| 2015 | 62.71 million |
| 2016 | 79.9 million |
| 2017 | 99.04 million |
| 2018 | 124.35 million |
| 2019 | 151.56 million |
| 2020 | 192.95 million |
| 2021 | 209 million |
| 2022 | 220.6 million |
| 2023 (so far) | 238.4 million |
We probably don’t need to go into too much detail in explaining Netflix’s biggest yearly subscriber increase – between 2019 and 2020, at the start of the Covid pandemic – when it gained more than 41 million new subscribers. Speaking of which, during the first major lockdown in the US, it’s estimated by HotDog.com that the country streamed around 204 billion hours of Netflix.
What’s more intriguing, though, is how the growth rate slows between 2021 and 2022 – when Netflix gains just 11.6 million, compared to the previous year’s 16.05 million bump.
Netflix announced as much at the end of Q1 2022, when it reported that it had, in the first three months of the year alone, lost a staggering 200,000 subscribers. The day after the report’s release, Netflix’s stock plummeted by over 35 per cent – the single biggest drop in the company’s history.
Things soon got worse when, in July 2022, Netflix reported a loss of another million subscribers in Q2 2022.
What happened? Well, Netflix put it down to increasing competition from other streaming services, while also pointing the finger at inflation. The easing of COVID-19-related restrictions wouldn’t have helped Netflix’s cause, though – and neither would the streaming service’s rising prices:
But Netflix’s subscriber bleed wasn’t its only problem.
Netflix’s real issue? Password-sharing.
Search Logistics predicts that around 27 per cent of Netflix subscribers ‘share’ the account of someone in their household, with a further 14 per cent using a friend’s or family member’s account.
That’s not to say it’s Netflix’s problem alone, though. Piracy and account-sharing cost paid-for TV and streaming providers $9.1bn in lost revenue in 2019 – a figure that, according to consultancy firm Parks Associates (as cited in LA Times), is expected to hit $12.5bn by 2024.
More liberal estimates from Citi (as cited in LA Times) double this figure, claiming password-sharing already costs streaming services $25bn per year, and that Netflix’s losses account for a quarter of this total.
That adds up to a whopping 41 per cent of Netflix users who aren’t paying.
Netflix’s solution is to clamp down on account sharing – something it began trialing in Latin America in 2022, and began rolling out across the world in 2023. Netflix subscribers in Canada, New Zealand, Spain, and Portugal were next, and – as of May 23 – the crackdown landed in the US, too.
The move allows subscribers in an ever-increasing number of countries around the world to add up to two people from other households to their account (each addition is less than the cost of a standalone subscription), but not to share passwords as they used to.
And the strategy already looks to be working. In Q2 2023 alone, Netflix added 5.89 million new subscribers. Extrapolate this out into a full year, and that’s almost 24 million subscribers – a figure that, if it comes to fruition, would represent Netflix’s second-largest subscriber growth in a single year (behind only the pandemic-propelled 2019 to 2020 year).
Netflix said: “While we’re still in the early stages of monetisation, we’re seeing healthy conversion of borrower households into full paying Netflix memberships as well as the uptake of our extra member feature. We are revenue and paid membership positive versus prior to the launch of paid sharing across every region in our latest launch.”
Speaking of regions – where does Netflix have the strongest presence?
| Year | US and Canada | EMEA | Asia Pacific | Latin America |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 64.7 | 37.8 | 10.6 | 26 |
| 2019 | 67.6 | 51.7 | 16.2 | 31.4 |
| 2020 | 73.9 | 66.7 | 25.4 | 37.5 |
| 2021 | 75.2 | 74 | 32.6 | 39.9 |
| 2022 | 74.2 | 76.7 | 38 | 41.6 |
In 2022, the EMEA – which added 2.7 million Netflix subscribers to its ranks between 2021 and 2022 – overtook the US and Canada as Netflix’s strongest regional subscriber base.
Netflix’s subscriber base in Asia Pacific and Latin America also grew by 5.2 million and 1.7 million, respectively. While, conversely, Netflix lost a million subscribers in the US and Canada.
Who watches more Netflix – men or women?
As it turns out, there’s almost nothing between them:
As for generational demographics, Netflix is most popular amongst Gen Y and Z, with three in four survey respondents (aged 18 to 35) having a subscription.
That said, Boomers are no stranger to a good box set binge – and one recent study showed that almost half (44 per cent) of people over 65 had a Netflix subscription.
According to the Unofficial Netflix Online Global Search (uNoGS), as of October 2022, Netflix has the rights to more than 17,300 titles across its international libraries – however, certain titles are only available in particular countries.
Many streamers travelling overseas have gotten around this particular roadblock, however, through using some of the best VPNs (virtual private networks).
VPNs change a streamer’s IP address, allowing them to unlock content from the country or region they’re subscribed in – even when they’re away from home. For example, someone living in the UK, but on holiday in France, could use a VPN to unlock the series they were watching back home (but a show unavailable in France) to enjoy while away.
Slovakia is Netflix’s largest library, with a total library size of 8,427 titles, while its smallest library, with a comparatively paltry 969 titles, is Uganda’s.
How about the UK? Well, though it might feel as though you’ve watched everything on there a thousand times already, in reality that’s unlikely. The UK’s total of 7,482 movies and TV shows means it boasts the eighth-most titles of all of Netflix’s libraries. (Comparitech)
As for the US, its library of 6,135 titles – including 2,299 TV shows and 3,836 movies – places 46th amongst the world’s countries.
But which country offers the best value for money?
Research from Comparitech – which looks at the number of titles in 104 countries, and how much a Netflix subscription costs in each – shows that Pakistan is the most cost-effective country to watch Netflix in. With a monthly cost of just $1.72 and access to 6,244 titles, Netflix in Pakistan works out at a price per title of just $0.00028.
India and Egypt ($0.00038 and $0.00039, respectively) are also places where Netflix’s basic plan won’t hurt you in the pocket. While Morocco, Colombia, Turkey, Argentina, Philippines, Bulgaria, and Tunisia round out the top 10 most cost-effective countries to binge Netflix.
Regardless of library size, the top 10 cheapest places in the world to watch Netflix on a basic plan are:
On the other side of the coin, Comparitech’s research demonstrated that, with a monthly cost of $8.42 and just 1,746 titles available, Guernsey is the least cost-effective place to watch Netflix, with a price per title of $0.00482.
Predictably, Uganda’s smallest title library ($0.00412) means it comes in second, while Seychelles and Nigeria ($0.00345 and $0.00324, respectively) follow closely. Making up the rest of the top 10 are Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Mozambique, Equatorial Guinea, Fiji, and Ghana – meaning that, of the 10 least cost-effective places to watch Netflix, 80 per cent are in Africa.
This lack of choice is, somewhat, reflected in a lack of uptake. Africa’s total Netflix subscriptions, in 2021, was estimated at 2.61 million – just 1.25 per cent of Netflix’s total of 209 million global subscribers that year. However, Statista expects this figure to grow – and, by the end of 2026, the total number of Netflix subscribers in Africa is forecast to hit 5.84 million.
Regardless of library size, the top 10 most expensive places in the world to watch Netflix on a basic plan are:
Since Netflix started producing original content in 2013 – an endeavor which began with the acclaimed House of Cards – it’s generated more than 1,500 original titles.
That said, it can be tricky to get an exact sense of which of these Netflix has created in-house, and which ones it simply has exclusive rights to broadcast – since both get slapped with the “Netflix Original” banner.
One 2022 report suggested that more than 3,100 Netflix titles in the US are Netflix Originals – so around 50 per cent of the country’s total library.
As for what’s popular, the most-viewed Netflix original series is the first season of Squid Game. Second – and the most-viewed Netflix original series in the English language – is the first season of Wednesday. Third is season 4 of Stranger Things.
In 2020, the average Netflix user spent 3.2 hours per day on the platform.
And, if we look at the historical data since 2009 – just two years after Netflix’s streaming service launched in the US, and one before it began to roll out internationally – that figure has grown every year, without fail.
| 2009 | 6 minutes |
| 2010 | 24 minutes |
| 2011 | 48 minutes |
| 2012 | 1 hour 12 minutes |
| 2013 | 1 hour 24 minutes |
| 2014 | 1 hour 36 minutes |
| 2015 | 1 hour 28 minutes |
| 2019 | 2 hours |
| 2020 | 3 hours 12 minutes |
Three hours and 12 minutes every day equals a collective total of over 6 billion hours per month. And around 288GB spent on data every month – each.
Another 2022 report, from Statista, showed surveyed adults spent 60 minutes per day on Netflix in 2020, 2021, and 2022 – with this number expected to rise to an average of 61 minutes per day in 2024. This is in contrast to TikTok (48 predicted minutes per day in 2024) and YouTube (46 minutes per day).
So – are there any geographic trends dictating those hours spent binging?
According to Comparitech, there are. And they have a distinctly Commonwealth flavour.
Research from almost 30,000 Netflix viewing histories shows that, since opening their Netflix account:
What are they watching, exactly? Invariably, it’s TV shows, which accounted for:
As of 2023, The Office (US version) is the most frequently streamed TV show on Netflix. It was watched for a total of 57.1 billion minutes during its run on the platform, which ended in December 2022. In terms of movies, 2021’s Red Notice – with over 454 million hours streamed – is the most frequently watched film on Netflix.
Here’s the full list of the top 10 most-watched movies on Netflix, as reported by Collider:
In Q2 2023, Netflix made an eye-watering $8.19bn in revenue – a 2.72 per cent year-on-year growth. Of that, $1.49bn was net profit, with a net profit margin of over 18 per cent.
This was up from Q1 2023, in which Netflix reported $8.16bn in revenue, $1.31bn in net profit, and a net profit margin of 16 per cent.
That means Netflix’s annual 2023 income so far (as at the end of Q2) is $2.8bn. So how does this stack up against the historical data?
Here are Netflix’s yearly net profit totals since 2011:
| 2011 | $225m | 2017 | $560m |
| 2012 | $17m | 2018 | $1.21bn |
| 2013 | $112m | 2019 | $1.87bn |
| 2014 | $266m | 2020 | $2.76bn |
| 2015 | $122m | 2021 | $5.1bn |
| 2016 | $188m | 2022 | $4.49bn |
If Netflix performs as well in the second half of 2023 as it did in the third, it can expect to see a net profit of $5.6bn – which would represent a new net profit record.
So – who’s driving all that growth?
Netflix employs around 12,800 people, who earn an average annual salary of $145,828 (or around $70 per hour). The median salary at Netflix is $142,504 ($68 per hour).
The highest earner is a corporate counsel, at $350,000 per year. Employees in operations can expect a salary of around $116,480, finance $115,359, and communications $228,345. At $58,356, an office manager is currently the lowest-paid position at Netflix.
And, like its viewers, Netflix’s employees have a nearly equal gender split.
In 2022, 49.6 per cent of the streaming service’s employees identified as female, 45 per cent were male, and 1.3 per cent identified as an additional gender identity.
As for ethnicity, in 2021, 9.1 per cent of Netflix employees identified as Black or African American – double the figure recorded in 2018.
Netflix has been rolling with the punches ever since it was founded by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in 1997.
In 2000, the pair pitched their company to Blockbuster for $50 million – and were flat-out rejected. Since then, Netflix has experienced stiff competition, poorly received original content, and months where both its subscribers and stock were in freefall. It’s also navigated 26 years’ worth of account-sharing, inflation, and increasingly demanding consumer preferences.
Yet for all that, it’s still around. Even up against Amazon, Netflix is still dominating the streaming space – and has a brand that is essentially synonymous with on-demand TV.
We’ll leave you with the top Netflix statistics that illustrate this streaming service provider’s ongoing monopoly of the market.
Will it stay there? Who knows – but based on these figures, we wouldn’t bet against it.
Independent Advisor does not endorse the streaming of content from regions other than where the subscription is held, nor does it endorse the downloading or consumption of illegally pirated content.
