Netflix currently has a little over 203 million paying subscribers. The streaming service reached that number thanks to 8.5 million new paying users in the past fourth quarter. 2020 was a record year in terms of the number of new paying users.
Today Netflix Released 2020 quarterly figures. Throughout the year, 37 million paying users were added, which was never before. In the fourth quarter, 8.5 million paying users were added, of which 4.5 million came from the combined region of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. This is still the region with the most growth.
The company expects the number of new paying subscribers to reach 6 million in the first quarter of this year. That would be significantly lower than the 15.8 million paying users that were added in the first quarter of last year. That high number of one year was attributed to the compulsory stay-at-home situation as a result of the corona pandemic.
As a result, the first nine months of 2020 were very positive for Netflix: in that period, 28.1 million paying users were added. That’s more than the total number of new users added throughout 2019.
As during the presentation of the quarterly figures for the third quarter of last year, Netflix is also now emphasizing that it is less and less dependent on the capital markets to raise money for its productions.
The company states that it has come close to the point of positive cash flow. This must be cost-effective in this year. That combined with a cash balance of $ 8.2 billion and an unused loan of $ 750 million, Netflix expects it will no longer need external funding for its day-to-day operations.
The streaming service generated revenue of $ 6.64 billion in the fourth quarter, which is well above the $ 5.47 billion in the fourth quarter of 2019. Net profit in the past quarter was $ 587 million, where that a year ago was 542 million dollars. Net profit for the whole of 2020 was $ 2.76 billion, compared to $ 1.87 billion in 2019.
