- Major sporting events attracted new Netflix subscribers from around the world.
- The company says that 18 million new subscribers came to Netflix in the last quarter of the year.
- Regarding live sports, Netflix says it intends to focus on one-off events that draw in a large audience rather than licensing seasonal packages.
Between the third and fourth quarter of 2024, Netflix welcomed over 18 million new members to its platform, the biggest gain recorded for the entire year. The streaming platform now has 300 million new subscribers.
Netflix reports in its Q4 earnings report that it drew in revenue of $10.2 billion, a 4.2 percent increase compared to Q3 2024. However, net income dropped from $2.3 billion to $1.8 billion which isn’t great but we suspect that the last quarter cost Netflix a chunk of change because of live sport.
During that quarter, Netflix broadcasted the boxing match between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson, declaring it the “most-streamed sporting event ever” with 108 million views. That could have been higher had Netflix not choked when more folks tuned into the stream.
While Netflix has since also broadcasted NFL games and joined forces with WWE, if you’re hoping to see continous live sport on the platform, don’t hold your breathe.
“We followed that up with the NFL on Christmas Day, which were the two most streamed NFL
games in history, and Beyoncé Bowl, which drove peak viewing on Christmas Day. Building on that momentum, we recently announced that we’ve secured the US rights for FIFA’s Women’s World Cup in 2027 and 2031. We’re not focusing on acquiring rights to large regular season sports packages; rather, our live strategy is all about delivering can’t-miss, special event programming,” Netflix told investors.
The broadcasting of NFL was a major play for Netflix in its home country. Traditionally growth in the US and Canada region is flat but over Q4, Netflix welcomes 4.82 million new members from the region, the biggest growth spurt all year. In fact, Netflix welcomed millions of new subscribers from all regions, suggesting that it was doing something right this quarter.
The streaming platform says that it will continue hosting live events as they result in value for the audience and of course, its business.
Of course, Netflix isn’t abandoning the thing that made it huge – movies and series. The company says that it has a tantalising slate of content planned for 2025. This includes the return of marquee shows such as Wednesday, Stranger Things, You, Squid Game and Ginny and Georgia. In movies Netflix reckons Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, Happy Gilmore 2 and RIP with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon will draw viewers in as well as new members.
The company will also continue with its gaming play stating that, “Going forward, we’re
focusing on offering best-in-class titles in a few key genres including immersive, narrative games based on our IP, socially engaging party games, games for kids and mainstream established titles (like Grand Theft Auto). While we started in mobile, our goal is to make our games accessible on all device types over time and in 2025 we’ll continue to test and expand our offering of cloud games on TV.”
As you might be aware Netflix’s games are limited to mobile at the moment. Mention of it having aspirations to reach more platforms is good news but we will wait to see how that plays out.
Looking ahead to Q1 2025, Netflix is cautious but still anticipates it will improve its revenue and net income. We suspect this is largely due to the allure of content from WWE in some parts of the world and highly anticipated content including the aforementioned Wake Up Dead and the finale of You.
For the rest of the year the goal is to sustain this growth and improve the core business while continuing to produce content the world wants to see.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. The streaming platform that manages to get sports streaming right at an affordable price will win the streaming wars and right now, Netflix – despite all of its failings – is ahead in that race.
