It will only reveal subscriber numbers when it wants positive press starting next year.
Beginning in the following year, Netflix will no longer disclose the number of individuals who have subscribed to its service, as well as the amount of revenue it generates from each individual subscriber, according to an announcement made by the business on Thursday. Instead, it will concentrate on showcasing the growth in income as well as the amount of time that users spend on using its platform.
In a letter to shareholders, the firm stated that “in our early days, when we had little revenue or profit, membership growth was a strong indicator of our future potential.” This statement was made in reference to the company’s early days. “However, there is a significant increase in both our profits and our free cash flow at the moment.”
Netflix has disclosed that it has gained 9.33 million customers over the course of the past few months, increasing the total number of households that pay for the service to nearly 270 million worldwide. Netflix has stated that it will “announce major subscriber milestones as we cross them,” which implies that we will most likely learn about it when it reaches 300 million subscribers. This is occurring despite the fact that the firm has decided to stop revealing user statistics on a quarterly basis.
It is estimated that more than half a billion individuals across the world watch movies and television series through Netflix’s service. Netflix is currently working out how to extract even more money from this audience by implementing new pricing tiers, implementing a crackdown on password-sharing, and displaying advertisements. The company has also been progressively adding games to its repertoire over the course of the past few years, including the Grand Theft Auto trilogy, Hades, Dead Cells, Braid, and a number of other titles.
Wall Street places a high level of importance on subscriber metrics since they provide insight into the rate at which a firm is expanding operations. The decision made by Netflix to stop reporting these, on the other hand, is something that we have seen from other firms in the past. An announcement made by Meta in February stated that it would no longer provide a breakdown of the number of daily and monthly Facebook users for each quarter. Instead, it would only provide the total number of people who utilized Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram simultaneously. In 2018, Apple, like many other companies, decided to stop disclosing the number of iPhones, iPads, and Macs that it sold during each quarter. Instead, the company chose to concentrate on the amount of money achieved in each category.