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Netflix hit the 75 million subscriber milestone on January 1, narrowly missing the figure in its year-end which capped out at 74.76 million, CEO Reed Hastings and CFO David Wells said in an open letter to investors.
“Our quarterâ€end 74.76 million members put us at over 17 million net additions for the year, showing how much the world is embracing Internet TV,” the pair stated.
In Q4 Netflix added 1.56 million US subs and 4.04 million international subs, versus its forecast of 1.65 million US and 3.5 million internationally.
Subscriber growth is also forecast to continue, up by 6.1 million by the end of March.
42.5 billion hours of video was streamed by Netflix subscribers in 2015, compared to only 29 billion hours in 2014.
Much of this growth can be attributed to the original programming being pumped out by the streaming giant, which is promising to up its output by 150 hours this year. Over 600 hours of original programming is expected in 2016, compared to 450 hours in 2015. This will include around 30 new series, eight feature films, 35 new original kids’ series, about a dozen documentaries and nine stand-up specials.
“Increasingly, our goal is to own more of our original programming to allow for greater creative and business control and to ensure global access to content,” Hastings and Wells wrote.
Despite the positivity, the execs did accept that much of the service’s growth may now be found outside of the US.
“Our high penetration in the U.S. seems to be making net additions harder than in the past,” the execs wrote.
Of the 75 million subs, just under 45 million are in the US.
Source: Netflix Investor Relations
