Netflix Tops 300M Subscribers in 2024, Raises Plan Prices Again
Your monthly Netflix subscription just became a bit more expensive. The streaming giant announced a set of price increases for its U.S. plans yesterday (Jan. 21) reporting surging fourth-quarter revenue and record subscriber growth. The basic ad-supported tier now costs $7.99 a month instead of $6.99; the standard plan costs $17.99 (up from $15.49); and the premium plan will set you back $22.99 (up from $20.99). The price increases will also impact plans in Canada, Portugal and Argentina.
To justify the latest price hikes, the second round in just over a year, Netflix promises a slate of new content in 2025. “When you’re going to ask for a price increase, you better make sure you have the goods and the engagement to back it up,” co-CEO Ted Sarandos said on an earnings call yesterday.
In the October-December quarter, Netflix added a record 19 million subscribers, bringing the total global membership to 302 million. Quarterly revenue jumped 16 percent year-over-year to $10.2 billion, beating Wall Street estimates. Net income roughly doubled to $1.9 billion. This is also the last time Netflix discloses subscriber numbers in quarterly reports.
Much of the company’s success in 2024 can be attributed to a slew of hit shows, such as season two of Squid Game, and a foray into live sports that appears to have paid off. Netflix’s offering of a November boxing match between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson became the most-streamed sporting event in history with some 60 million viewers tuning in, while the two NFL games it hosted on Christmas Day stand as the most-streamed NFL games with a total of nearly 65 million viewers between them.
What’s next for Netflix in 2025?
Despite plans to continue streaming sports events like the 2027 and 2031 FIFA’s Women’s World Cup, Netflix isn’t banking its future entirely on sports. Sarandos admitted that “the underlying economics of full-season big league sports” remain “extremely challenging” and said the company will focus on streaming live events more broadly. Its live programming schedule in 2025 will include WWE programming, the SAG Awards, a variety talk show from the comedian John Mulaney and “a few surprises,” said Sarandos.
The streaming giant doesn’t just measure success by revenue and viewership. Last year also saw the company release shows “that pierced the cultural zeitgeist,” according to Netflix’s earnings report, which pointed to its content making up six out of the ten most searched TV shows on Google (GOOGL).
Some shows, such as Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, also made an impact in a surprising area of the internet: Wikipedia. The Netflix release helped push a Wikipedia page on Lyle and Erik Menendez, two brothers convicted of murdering their parents in 1989, to become the fifth most-read Wikipedia page in the U.S. in 2024 with 26 million views. Another Netflix show focused on Colombian drug lord Griselda Blanco, meanwhile, saw Blanco’s page become the 23rd most-read page on Wikipedia last year.