Netflix received 15.77 million paid subscribers in the first quarter of 2020. The streaming service now has more than 182 million paid subscribers. According to the latest earnings report, it generated $ 5.768 billion in revenue in the first quarter of this year. This is an annual increase of more than 27%.
Netflix numbers outnumber rivals
The staggering increase in the number of paying subscribers was, of course, the result of an increasing number of people wanting to broadcast content during coronavirus blockades around the world. In a letter Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said to shareholders:
At Netflix, we are well aware that we are lucky enough to have an even more meaningful service for people who are house bound, and that we can operate remotely in the short and medium term. As with other home entertainment services, we are temporarily seeing a higher viewership and increased membership.
However, he added that the company “expects viewership to decline and member growth to slow down at the end of home birth, which will hopefully be soon.” The company predicts a more modest increase of 7.5 million paid subscribers in the second quarter of 2020.
Compare and nuance
For comparison, Amazon’s Q4 2019 figures showed it had 150 million Prime subscribers. All of these people have access to the Prime Video streaming service, although we don’t know how many people actually use it. It will be interesting to see what these numbers will look like when released on March 30. In February, analyst Toni Sacconaghi describes that Apple TV + only had about 10 million subscribers. And that’s when nobody pays (directly) for it. The new iPhone SE may help grow a bit, but given the reduced demand for the device, it’s hard to imagine causing an extremely large recovery.
We’ve known for a long time that Netflix won the streaming wars. These last numbers show how far ahead he is.