Netflix, one of the leading OTT platforms, reported strong growth in its advertisement business in the third quarter of 2024. According to Netflix’s Co-CEO, President, and Director Gregory K Peters, the ads plan accounted for over 50 percent of sign-ups in Q3 2024 in its 12 ad countries. In the US, Netflix saw more than 150 percent increase in its ad sales commitments in Q3. Peters expects that ad revenue will roughly double year-over-year, albeit off a small base.
Netflix has launched ad-supported plans in 12 countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Spain, Uk and the US. The ad-supported plan includes commercial breaks in most TV shows and movies. In the US, Netflix’s ad plan costs $6.99 per month.
GK Peters said that the number of ads plan memberships on the platform increased by 35 percent quarter-over-quarter. He mentioned that there’s no significant difference between viewers with ads plans and non-ads plans.
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“Our ads plan members are watching similar amount of view hours and similar titles, too, which is probably interesting to note, relative to comparable non-ads plan members,” Peters added. He emphasized that his top priority is to grow the ad-tier membership “to get to sufficient scale to be relevant in each market for advertisers”.
Netflix will be launching its first-party ad server in Canada in the fourth quarter and expanding it to the rest of the ad markets in 2025.
Netflix has partnered with ‘Trade Desk’ and ‘Google Live’ to execute and grow its ad business. The Netflix Co-CEO added, “Our goal over the next 5 or 10 years is to combine the best of digital advertising”.
On Netflix’s gaming efforts, Peters said the platform will be adding new games such as -Squid Game, Virgin River Christmas, The Ultimatum, and Monument Valley 3. Netflix is also expanding into live. ” We’ve got the Tyson-Paul fight, NFL in December. We got 52 weeks of WWE coming in January, John Mulaney and more and more,” Peters said.
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The online streaming platform on Thursday released the Q3 results, reporting a revenue of $9.83 billion and operating income of $2.91 billion. The online streaming giant added 50 lakh subscribers in the third quarter, taking the total subscribers count to 28.72 crore.
Further, during the Q3 earning call, Co-CEO Theodore A Sarandos anticipated that Netflix would deliver 15 percent revenue growth and 6 percentage points of operating margin improvement and engagement in 2025. The OTT platform is forecasting 2025 revenue of $43 billion-$44 billion.