Netflix added 5.9 million new subscribers in the second quarter of 2023, taking the total number of global subscribers up to 238.39 million.
Netflix has been making quite a few changes of late, including the launch of a new ad-supported plan. Priced at just $6.99 a month, the Standard with ads plan is now the cheapest way to sign up to the popular streaming service. Netflix also recently cracked down on password-sharing, and it seems like this combination of paid sharing and advertising has greatly helped to increase the number of paid subscribers.
As part of its Q2 2023 earnings release, Netflix confirmed it added another 5.9 million subscribers over the past few months. To put this increase into perspective, Netflix added 1.75 million subscribers in the first quarter of this year, and actually lost almost one million in the second quarter of 2022.
Following the latest additions, Netflix closed out the more recent quarter with 238.39 million global subscribers.
Most of these new additions did come from international markets. In the US and Canada, Netflix saw an increase of 1.17 million subscribers, taking the total number of subscribers in this market up to 75.57 million. Once again, this was a massive change compared to the year before when Netflix lost 1.3 million subscribers in the US and Canada.
It is worth noting that these latest figures were reported soon after the company confirmed it had removed the Basic plan as an option for new and returning subscribers. Following this change, the cheapest ad-free Netflix plan now costs $15.49 a month.
Netflix did briefly comment on this change. Firstly, Netflix again confirmed that, after removing the Basic ad-free plan in Canada earlier in the quarter, it has also now removed the plan in both the US and the UK.
Secondly, Netflix stated that the company believes its “entry prices in these countries – $6.99 in the US, £4.99 in the UK and $5.99 in Canada – provide great value to consumers given the breadth and quality of our catalog.”
