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You’ve gotta give it to them. Netflix added BridgerTONS of subscribers this quarter.
In Q2 2024, the streaming giant added 8 million subscribers, bringing its global subscriber count to 278 million, and in the ongoing streaming wars, that metric will always (somewhat) matter.
But don’t expect to hear about it for much longer: In Q1, Netflix told investors it would stop providing quarterly membership numbers come 2025, and in its letter to shareholders at that time, the company stressed it was “focused on revenue and operating margin as our primary financial metrics—and engagement (i.e. time spent) as our best proxy for customer satisfaction.”
Fret not—there are other key metrics in the streaming wars, like how strong a company's ad business is, which has become a crucial part of streamers’ profitability plans. Netflix, one of the few profitable streaming services, has benefited from a password-sharing crackdown and an active push for its ad-supported tier.
The numbers back it up: Revenue came in at $9.6 billion for the quarter, up 16.8% year over year. Netflix now anticipates full-year revenue growth of 14% to 15%, up from its previously forecast 13% to 15%.
There’s one little snag. Despite its emphasis on its ad business, Netflix doesn’t expect ad revenue “to be a primary driver of our revenue growth in 2024 or 2025.”
“The near term challenge (and medium term opportunity) is that we’re scaling faster than our ability to monetize our growing ad inventory,” the company said in a shareholder letter.
Of course, that’s a relatively good problem to have. And now that the company is on track to meet subscriber goals, Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters said on an earnings call that it’s turning its attention to monetizing its ad inventory.
“A big component of that is giving advertisers more effective ways to buy Netflix,” Peters said. “It’s a big point of feedback that we heard from advertisers.”