Netflix is raising prices for some of its customers after the company saw strong growth in its subscriber base.
The video streaming service said Wednesday that it added 8.8 million additional customers in the third quarter, bringing its total number of subscribers to 247.2 million. Netflix owes its greater reach to the variety and quality of its programming, as well as the company’s crackdown on password sharing.
Effective immediately, Netflix is increasing the monthly price of its most expensive plan in the US to $22.99, an increase of $3, and increasing the monthly price of its basic plan by $2, increasing to $11.99 US dollar rises. The company’s $6.99 ad-supported plan remains unchanged.
Prices for basic and premium tariffs are also rising in France and Great Britain.
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“As we provide more value to our members, we occasionally ask them to pay a little more,” Netflix said in a letter to its shareholders. “Our starting price is extremely competitive compared to other streamers and is, for example, US$6.99 per month, much lower than the average price of a single movie ticket in the US.”
SAG-AFTRA and Hollywood studios suspend negotiations
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that Netflix would raise subscription prices a few months after the end of the Hollywood actors’ strike. Actors are still striking, but the Writers Guild of America ended its strike last month after reaching an agreement with services like Netflix.
The Los Gatos, California-based company reported third-quarter profit of $1.68 billion, up 20% from the same period last year. Netflix is forecasting revenue of $8.69 billion for the current quarter, as the company looks to recover financially given the difficulties faced by newer streaming services.
Shares of Netflix rose 12% after the US close.
Netflix added more than 16 million subscribers in the first nine months of the year, surpassing the 8.9 million subscribers for all of 2022. But that’s just a fraction of the more than 36 million additional subscribers Netflix added in 2020. The pandemic became a money-generating time for the service, a time when people were looking for things that they could do at home.
—The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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