Netflix Surges In 2016

From the archive: originally published on News, in Data in January 2017. The text and charts appear as they ran then.

Netflix is up, way up in the fourth quarter of 2016. While cable data for Q4 are not yet available it is plausible that Netflix, for the first time, will have more domestic subscribers than the top cable companies, combined. At the end of 2016 the domestic Netflix base rose to nearly 50 million subscribers. Our latest data from the top cable companies shows a subscriber base of nearly 49 million.

Subscriber growth was also strong in international markets. From the Q4 2015 to Q4 2016, Netflix membership rose nearly 48% in markets outside the US. While still impressive, the domestic membership grew only by 11% over the same time period. To compare to top cable subscribers, we can use Q3 figures, again Q4 is not yet available, and we see a net loss of 0.001% of their membership base.

Netflix Revenue

This past year was also a banner year for revenue, Netflix earnings nearly topped $9 billion USD in 2016. Five billion of this revenue is from domestic streaming, $3 billion in revenue was from international streaming and surprisingly, $0.5 billion was made from domestic DVD services.

Netflix Source Data, TV Cable Data, Additional Netflix Data Found Here