Netflix on Thursday reported first-quarter earnings for the year, posting $9.37 billion in revenue, along with profits of $2.33 billion and a total subscriber base of 269.6 million.
The streaming giant handily beat Wall Street estimates, which had pegged the company to post earnings of $9.28 billion and 264.2 million total memberships.
Netflix saw a 14.8% hike in its total earnings, from $8.16 billion in the same quarter last year. Net income saw a massive jump from $1.30 billion in the year-ago quarter, while overall subscribers grew a whopping 16% year-over-year from 232.5 million in Q1 2023. Netflix reported earnings per share of $5.28 for the quarter.
According to Netflix, these healthy gains were largely a result of subscriber growth and membership pricing adjustments. Over the past few quarters, Netflix has hiked subscription pricing, added a new ad-supported membership tier, and even started cracking down on password sharing to strengthen its revenue streams.
Q1 2024 marks one of the last quarters where Netflix will announce quarterly membership numbers, as the company is due to do away with the metric starting next year.
“As we’ve noted in previous letters, we’re focused on revenue and operating margin as our primary financial metrics — and engagement (i.e. time spent) as our best proxy for customer satisfaction,” the company said in its quarterly letter to shareholders. The company added that it still plans to announce “major subscriber milestones as we cross them,” however.
As Netflix pivots from subscriber growth to increasing profits, the company is also looking to expand its offerings. “We’re in the very early days of developing our live programming and I would look at this as an expansion of the types of content we offer, the way we expanded to film and unscripted and animation and most recently games,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said during Thursday’s earnings call.
Netflix saw game downloads on its platform soar 180% throughout 2023, driven largely by the release of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy — The Definitive Edition. Earlier this year, the company announced that it would live-stream a fight between Jake Paul and boxing legend “Iron Mike” Tyson on Saturday, July 20, 2024.
