Netflix gains 2.4 million new subscribers in Q3 2022

Netflix snapped back to subscriber growth in the third quarter of 2022 by adding 2.4 million subscribers, more than double its prediction of 1 million customers.

This comes after back-to-back quarters of customer defections. Netflix lost 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter, and nearly one million in the second. The streaming giant said it now has 223 million subscribers worldwide.

“Thank God we’re done with shrinking quarters,” co-Chief Executive Reed Hastings said on the company’s earnings call on Tuesday.

The majority of Netflix’s net subscriber growth during the quarter came from the Asia-Pacific region, which accounted for 1.43 million subscribers. The US-Canada region had the smallest growth of Netflix’s regions, contributing just 100,000 net subscribers.

During the quarter, Netflix released the final episodes of Stranger Things S4, which generated 1.35 billion hours viewed. This was followed in August by The Sandman (351 million hours viewed), Cobra Kai (270 million hours viewed) and limited series Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (824 million hours viewed) from Ryan Murphy, which made its Q3 slate strong.

In its quarterly letter to shareholders, Netflix states, "We also continue to invest heavily in marketing, with a particular focus on innovative ways to drive conversation around our titles, which in turn boosts engagement for Netflix. For example, our campaigns for Stranger Things S4 and The Gray Man drove more than 9.8 billion and 1.2 billion impressions, respectively, across paid marketing, social media platforms and events. And content for Tudum, our global fan event that ran for its second year in September, generated almost 1 billion views - up over 30% from last year."

“After a challenging first half, we believe we are on a path to reaccelerate growth. The key is pleasing members. It’s why we’ve always focused on winning the competition for viewing every day. When our series and movies excite our members, they tell their friends, and then more people watch, join and stay with us," shares Netflix.

Netflix will introduce advertising on its service from November 3 as part of its bid to attract more customers with a lower-cost subscription. The advertising-supported tier, priced at $6.99 a month in the United States, will show subscribers four to five minutes of ads per hour of content they watch.