Netflix surpasses 200 million subscriber mark

Netflix took the initiative the global streaming game mamy years ago, and it has certainly used that momentum to its advantage as it has gone on to become the biggest streaming company in the world thanks to its wide collection of original content. While Netflix was able to dominate the streaming space with very little in the way of competition, over the past few years new challengers like Amazon, Disney+, HBO Max, Apple TV and Hulu have risen to give the red brand a run for its money.

Despite all that competition, the company continues to grow its subscriber base and has just surpassed another impressive benchmark by reaching the 200 million subscriber mark. The company announced the news at its recent quarterly earnings call (as revealed by The Verge) with investors revealing that it added a total of 8.5 million paid net subscribers in Q4, which has seen it now reach a total of 203.6 million subscribers around the world. That makes for a growth of 27 million new subscribers.

That is impressive for the streaming service, which recently added big hit series and films such as The Queen’s Gambit, Emily in Paris, Bridgerton, The Crown, and Cobra Kai, amongst many others to its library reccently.

Netflix is fully aware of the even faster growth of services such as Disney+ and HBO Max and has warned warning investors not to expect the same level of growth as last year, which was also boosted by the pandemic and a lack of box office alternatives to many people’s watching habits.

Most importantly for the company though, was that it achieved $25 billion in annual revenue and revealed that it will “no longer have a need to raise external financing for our day-to-day operations.” Netflix has been borrowing quite heavily to fund its many different box office level series and movies, and it seems like things are finally turning the corner as it has made enough profit to be able to start funding projects without the need to borrow cash. Something which should certainly only allow profit margins to grow further and see share prices go up.

Given the wealth of content the company has already announced for the year ahead, I would expect the subscriber base to only continue growing from here. Yes, the competition will increase, and Netflix will have a tougher job in keeping this subscriber count, but if it can keep the hits coming then it should be in a good position to be the global leader in streaming for a good while yet.

Last Updated: January 21, 2021