NetFlix is About to Hit 100 Million Subscriber Milestone

NetFlix is about to reach the 100 million subscriber milestone, with a 98.7 million global customer base currently as of the end of March 2017. The 100 million subscriber milestone is counted from the beginning of the video streaming service over a decade ago until present day in over 190 countries worldwide. In Q3 2011, NetFlix only had over 23 million subscribers. Over 51 million of NetFlix’ subscribers are US-based but the subscriber count outside the US has been steadily increasing. Within the first three months of 2017 alone, NetFlix saw 5 million new subscribers and much of the new growth can be attributed to increased mobile viewing.

“What really did it for Netflix was the explosion of phones and tablets that allowed people to watch video everywhere,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter. “But Netflix clearly had a vision before those devices became so ubiquitous.”

NetFlix CEO Reed hastings claims that the next 100 million will arrive more quickly than the first 100 million subscribers, stating that “everybody watches TV and nearly everybody has the internet, so I don’t see anything that’s going to stop Netflix from getting to most people in the United States and then eventually hopefully most people around the world.”

Despite this impressive subscriber base, NetFlix still has yet to catch up to HBO, who currently has 134 million subscribers worldwide. HBO served as a model for NetFlix when they first started, but they have also set their sights on reaching YouTube numbers, who according to Google get views in the neighbourhood of 1 billion hours of video per day. NetFlix will be spending $6 billion on original programming in 2017.