The Netflix premium streaming service once again posted solid financial numbers for the third quarter of 2024. The company revealed it added 5.07 million new paid subscribers during that time period, which was ahead of expectations. Netflix now has 282.72 million global subscribers and it added it now has over 600 million viewers worldwide when you take into account people who watch movies and TV shows on the service that don"t actually pay for Netflix.
In its financial report, Netflix stated it generated $9.825 billion in revenue for the quarter, which was higher than the $8.542 billion it had in revenue from the same period a year ago. Net income for the quarter was $2.364 billion, which was again higher than the $1.677 billion in net income it had from a year ago. All of those numbers were ahead of expectations from financial investors.
The company also stated that people with paid membership spent an average of over two hours a day streaming content on the service. This will the the second to last time Netflix will offer membership numbers in its financial results. It will issue its last regular membership number update in January 2025 when it reports its fourth quarter 2024 financial results.
Netflix previously phased out its Basic no-ads play in the US and Canada, and will do the same for Brazil later in the fourth quarter of 2024. New subscribers will have to get a plan with ads if they want the cheapest subscription. It added:
Our ads plan allows us to offer a lower price point for consumers, which is proving to be popular: in Q3, it accounted for over 50% of sign-ups in our ads countries and membership on our ads plan grew 35% quarter over quarter. We’re on track to reach what we believe to be critical ad subscriber scale for advertisers in all of our ads countries in 2025, creating a strong base from which we can further increase our ad membership in 2026 and beyond.
Netflix also has some big content coming up for the rest of 2024, including the long-awaited second season of Squid Game on December 26, two live NFL games on Christmas Day, and the live boxing event between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul on November 15.