14 months after its launch, Netflix’s ad-supported tier now has over 23 million global active users, according to President of Advertising Amy Reinhard.
In November 2022, Netflix launched its ad tier in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, and Spain. At the Variety Entertainment Summit at CES 2024, Reinhard spoke about the adoption and engagement this entry-level tier has seen. “The thing we’re really excited about is the engagement,” Reinhard said. She continued to state that of the ~23 million ad-supported subscribers, 85 percent are watching more than two hours of content per day.
Last year, during the ad tier’s first anniversary in November, it was reported that the ad tier had just exceeded 15 million global monthly active users. At the time, Netflix was also looking to upgrade its ad-supported experience by upgrading the video quality from 720p to 1080p in select markets and enabling two concurrent streams across all markets.
In Q1 2024, Netflix is looking to add even more enhancements to the tier. Partnering with Microsoft Advertising, a new binge model is expected to drop. This new format will enable viewers to watch a fourth consecutive episode without any ads. This will likely further drive engagement for the ad tier.
“We’re very fortunate to be able to take a long-term perspective on this,” Reinhard said during the summit. “Scaling our business is absolutely our biggest priority right now, but we want to make sure we’re doing that in a meaningful way for the members.”
In Canada, Netflix Basic With Ads is available for $5.99.
