LOS GATOS, Calif.—There are now more than 200 million people across the world who subscribe to Netflix. Per the streamer’s Q4 2020 shareholder letter, Netflix officially has 203.66 million paid subscribers.
In a year where people stayed home to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, streaming saw a sizable increase in subscribers and time spent. For Netflix, 2020 saw a record growth of 37 million new paid subscribers. The streamer’s net addition was 8.5 million.
Netflix notes that 83% of its new subscribers for 2020 come from outside the U.S. and Canada. The EMEA region accounted for 41% of full-year adds, while APAC was the second largest contributor with 9.3 million, a 65% year-over-year increase. In North America, after a strong first half of 2020, neither Q3 or Q4 saw more than 1 million new subscribers join Netflix.
Financially, Q4 actually saw Netflix’s net income drop from $790 million in Q3 to $542 million. The company says that the drop was the result of a $258 million non-cash unrealized loss from foreign exchange remeasurement. Netflix’s revenue overall for 2020 was up 21.5%, with the streamer reporting a total revenue of $6.64 billion.
As part of its Q4 report, Netflix also provided its Q1 2021 projection. The streamer is expecting paid net adds of about 6 million for the first quarter. Q1 2020 netted 15.8 million paid additions, but those numbers saw boosts with the early days of the pandemic.
With its global subscription base, Netflix is still the largest streaming platform on the market. However, new additions Disney+ and, more recently, HBO Max, have been seeing strong gains in subscriptions as well.
For more information on Netflix’s Q4 shareholder report, visit Netflix’s website.
