PATTERN RECOGNITION: The rise and rise of Netflix
The company has surged with strong growth and a $6bn budget for new shows, $1bn more than last year
If you needed confirmation that we live in an online world where people stream their TV shows instead of watching them via traditional television broadcasts, Netflix’s results last week are proof. Delivering killer quarterly results, Netflix said it had revenue of US$2.48bn for the fourth quarter and had added 7m new customers, of which 3.7m were outside its US home market. Netflix now has 93.8m subscribers, which grew by 19m last year alone. Last January Netflix said it would launch in 190 countries around the world. That revelation overshadowed much of the other news from the annual CES showcase in Las Vegas. That strategy appears to be working, as the results gave Netflix its best-ever quarter in its 19-year history. Netflix’s secret has been to evolve its business model. Until the past few years, it was the repository of previously aired TV shows and movies. It was the archive, as it were, of other channels’ shows, but didn’t have anything current on.But the largest streaming se...
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