On Thursday, one of the US streaming giants, Netflix, announced that they ended the last year with more than 230 million global subscribers.
What is the Complete News?
In a letter announcing bumper fourth-quarter earnings, Netflix said 2022 was a challenging year for them, with a bumpy start but a brighter finish.
Netflix enticed 7.7 million new members in three months, bringing the company’s membership to 230 million people worldwide.
They said the credit for this massive growth goes to a successful collection of new content, including horror-themed comedy, Wednesday and Harry & Meghan.
Glass Onion: A Knives out Mystery, starring Daniel Craig, also scored well. Netflix said the fresh content on their platform attracts users to a new lower-priced subscription.
The only reason behind this was that people were cutting back on their entertainment spending due to increasing inflation and an uncertain economy.
Talking about the revenue, the company made around $7.85 billion in the October to December period. And the announcement helped to send the company’s shares up by more than six percent.
A tech and media analyst, Paolo Pescatore, made a statement that it’s a stark contrast to the first half of the year, creating the next massive drives of subscribers. An Insider Intelligence principal analyst, Paul Verna, said some new subscribers came in on Netflix’s ad-supported tier.
He also said that’s why the lower average revenue new subscribers will be paying more attention to Netflix’s ad businesses scales up.
Netflix’s Co-Founder Steps Down as CEO
The company made one more announcement that co-founder Reed Hastings who was the company’s CEO also decided to step down from his two-decade-long leadership. He replaced his control with his two longtime associates (COO), Chief Operating Officers Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters.
They have been the face of the company in Hollywood. During an interview, Reed Hastings said that their board has already been discussing succession planning for many years.
However, Hastings also decided to pursue a new role in the company. He said he would continue as the executive chairman as this is the only job techs giant founders like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos often take.
What’s Next?
For many years, Netflix has been standing alone as one of the global premier streaming sites. But now, they have to face strong competition from deep-pocketed rivals such as Disney+ as they also began introducing ad-based subscriptions.
Despite the competition, the company is still one of the rare tech giants, with its share price up almost 50% in the last six months.
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