Netflix Adds 10 Million Subs in Q1

Netflix’s first-quarter revenues rose by 22 percent to $4.5 billion, with the platform announcing its highest quarterly paid net additions, of 9.6 million, a 16-percent year-on-year gain.

Net profit at the platform rose to $344 million. Netflix ended the quarter with 149 million paid subscribers and says it will hit 154 million by the end of Q2. ARPU fell by 2 percent in the period, largely due to foreign currency fluctuations.

The new additions were driven by international—7.9 million outside of the U.S. and 1.7 million domestically. The platform has 60.2 million U.S. subs and 88.6 million international customers. Slower growth is forecast for Q2, with 5 million net paid additions, 300,000 in the U.S. and 4.7 million internationally.

The platform revealed some streaming numbers in its latest financials. Umbrella Academy has been watched by 45 million member households in its first four weeks on the service; FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened has been watched by over 20 million member households in its first month, and Our Planet is expected to be watched by 25 million member households projected in the first month of release.

On the competitive environment, with new services from Apple and Disney launching soon, Netflix said, “We don’t anticipate that these new entrants will materially affect our growth because the transition from linear to on-demand entertainment is so massive and because of the differing nature of our content offerings. We believe we’ll all continue to grow as we each invest more in content and improve our service and as consumers continue to migrate away from linear viewing (similar to how U.S. cable networks collectively grew for years as viewing shifted from broadcast networks during the 1980s and 1990s). We believe there is vast demand for watching great TV and movies and Netflix only satisfies a small portion of that demand. Last quarter, we talked about how our streaming hours in the U.S. (our most mature market) on TV still only represents roughly 10 percent of total TV usage. We are much smaller and have even more room to grow in other countries and on other devices like mobile.”