Thanks to advertising subscription: Netflix gains five million customers
Netflix gained more than five million subscribers last quarter and exceeded Wall Street's expectations. The video streaming market leader's growth was largely driven by its lower-priced ad-supported plan.
This price tier recently had 35% more users than three months previously. Netflix now has a total of around 282.7 million households. According to the company, customers spend an average of two hours a day on the service.
The streaming provider increased its revenue in the third quarter by 15 percent year-on-year to just over 9.8 billion dollars. Analysts had expected slightly less than 9.8 billion dollars. At the bottom line, profit jumped to 2.36 billion dollars from around 1.68 billion dollars a year earlier.
Netflix is hoping for a further boost in the current quarter, including from the second season of the successful South Korean series "Squid Game", and is again expecting revenue growth of almost 15 percent.
New subscriptions due to restrictions
Netflix has been cracking down on password sharing since last year. This is also driving growth in the number of subscriptions. Many previous free riders have taken out their own subscription instead of turning their backs on Netflix.
Investors were delighted. Netflix shares rose by a good three percent in after-hours trading on New York's Wall Street. (SDA/swi)
