We'll roughly double our ad revenue in 2025, says Netflix co-CEO

While tariff uncertainties, the possibility of an all-out global trade war, and the economic turmoil it could trigger are keeping advertisers wary, video streamer Netflix remains buoyant.

“We aren't currently seeing any signs of softness from our direct interactions with (ad) buyers,” co-CEO Greg Peters told investors during the company’s earnings call last Thursday. “Actually, quite the opposite. We are seeing some positive indicators from clients as we approach our upfront event.”

Netflix Upfronts is the company’s annual event where it presents its content slate and advertising opportunities to potential clients. The upcoming event, scheduled for May 2025, will be the third hosted by the video streamer.

“We are currently small in ads,” admits Peters, before adding, “that smallness probably provides us some insulation from market shifts right now”.

Despite this, the co-CEO expects that “we will roughly double our advertising revenue in 2025” through a combination of upfront sales, programmatic expansion, and scatter.

The video streamer posted $10.54 billion in revenue for the first quarter of 2025, a 12.5% increase from last year.

Netflix will roll out its proprietary ad suite, already available in Canada and the United States, to 10 more markets. This expansion is central to its expectation of doubling advertising revenue.

The biggest benefit Netflix has seen from the ad suite, according to Peters, is that “it just enables more flexibility for advertisers, more ways that they can buy, and there are fewer activation hurdles. We have the ability to improve that overall buyer experience iteratively”.

Netflix offered ad-free streaming until it launched ‘Basic with Ads’ in 2022. The plan is now available in 12 countries, but it does not include India, where the platform continues to offer four ad-free streaming plans.

Unchanged sports strategy

Netflix’s live event strategy, which focuses heavily on sports such as the NFL, boxing, and WWE, remains unchanged.

“We remain really focused on the big breakthrough events. Our audiences love them. And so, anything we pursue in the event or sports space has to make economic sense as well,” said the video streamer’s other co-CEO Ted Sarandos.

Elaborating on this strategy, which currently concentrates on the United States, he said, “We intend to grow the capability to do it around the world in the years ahead.”

When asked about Netflix moving into short-form or creator-led content to compete directly with YouTube, Peters said everyone is competing hard for people’s entertainment time. 

“The biggest opportunity we have is actually going after the roughly 80% share of television time that neither Netflix nor YouTube currently occupy. We think of that as a real immediate opportunity.”

He also said Netflix is a “more competitive and better service for a certain class of creators and certain types of storytelling”, and added, “We lead monetisation for those kinds of titles. That means we can provide a better opportunity than YouTube or other services for those creators and those stories.”