International Drives Netflix Subs Gains as U.S. Growth Slows

Netflix added 8.8 million subscribers in Q4, driven by international, with an increasingly competitive U.S. landscape leading to smaller gains in North America.

The streaming platform posted Q4 revenues of $5.5 billion, a 31-percent increase, with a net income of $587 million. Full-year revenues topped $20 billion.

Netflix says it delivered record paid net additions in EMEA, LatAm and AsiaPac, while net additions in North America fell from 1.75 million in the year-ago quarter to 550,000 (420,000 in the U.S.). “Our low membership growth in UCAN is probably due to our recent price changes and to U.S. competitive launches. We have seen more muted impact from competitive launches outside the U.S. As always, we are working hard to improve our service to combat these factors and push net adds higher over time.”

Revenues from the U.S. and Canada, where Netflix has 67.7 million subs, rose to $2.7 billion. EMEA revenues rose to $1.6 billion, with paid memberships rising by 4.4 million to 51.8 million. LatAm revenues rose to $746 million with 31.4 million subs, a gain of 2 million in the quarter. AsiaPac revenues rose to $418 million as the company added 1.8 million subs to reach 16.2 million. Total international subs hit 106.05 million.

For Q1 2020, Netflix projects 7 million net additions globally, behind the 9.6 million recorded in Q1 of this year.

The Witcher is set to be Netflix’s biggest season one series ever, with 76 million subscriber homes choosing to watch the fantasy series.