Netflix has beaten everyone’s expectations by announcing it added nearly 10 million global streaming members in 2012, bringing the total to over 33 million global streaming members worldwide.
The company said it generated profits for the year 2012, despite large international investments establishing Netflix in 40 countries around the world.
In a letter to investors, the company said “We added more than 2 million members in Q4 to end the year with over 27 million domestic members. Our holiday season was particularly strong, driven by consumers buying new electronic devices, including tablets and smart TVs.”
Original programming will be increasingly important for Netflix. The company developed several major original series, which will debut this year. “Like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu are moving towards increasing exclusives and original series, and over time as a group we are likely to compete more like Showtime and HBO do today. In the UK this is already the case: Sky Now TV, Lovefilm, and Netflix have very limited overlapping content. The same holds true in the Nordics among the various services. In such a world, our originals will be a great asset.”
Netflix grew to over 6 million international members. The company has yet to make up its mind about any future international launches. “For the first half of 2013, we aren’t planning to launch additional international markets. We are evaluating several expansion markets for late 2013 or 2014, but have not made any decisions yet. Our launch in the Nordics was very successful, confirming our belief in the large international opportunity for our service.”
