Netflix now has 139 million subscribers worldwide and grew its user base by 8.8m in Q4 2018 according to the company’s latest financial results. The global streaming giant reported that annual revenues had grown 35% in 2018 to $16bn, operating profits had doubled to $1.6bn and overall, it had 29 million more subscribers than this time last year. By comparison, 2017 saw an increase of 22 million new subscribers. 

Netflix, which announced a monthly price rise of $2 last week for its US members, said that it now had close to 81 million international subscribers vs. 58 million in its domestic market.

Other highlights from the financial statement include:

• Netflix spent $9.97bn on content in 2018 vs. $8.03bn in 2017 (a rise of 24%)
• The company estimates that the US population watches 1 billion hours of TV every day (based on a calculation of 120m homes x 2 TVs per home x 4 hours) and that since it streams 100 million hours a day, Netflix accounts for 10% of daily viewing time;
• The Sandra Bullock movie, Bird Box, would likely be viewed by 80 million member households in the four weeks since its release last December;
• Netflix spent nearly $1bn more on marketing in 2018 than in 2017 ($2.37bn vs. $1.44bn) and $268m more on technology and development ($1.22bn vs. $954m)
• Just over 9 million people around the world are using Netflix on a free trial basis

Netflix’s share price rose a modest 0.5% after the latest statement.