The company increased its subscribers by 1.75 million in the first quarter, with a profit of 1,189 million, 18% less
The giant for the production and distribution of audiovisual content in ‘streaming’ Netflix has announced the closure at the end of the year of its rental and postal distribution service for DVD series and movies, the origin of the Los Gatos company 25 years ago and which it continued to be offered through DVD.com.
“After an incredible 25-year run, we have decided to liquidate DVD.com at the end of this year,” confirmed Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix, adding that the last DVDs will ship from the company on September 29, 2023. .
In the 2022 financial year, the DVD business reported to Netflix annual revenues of 145.69 million dollars (133 million euros), a figure that barely represents 0.5% of the multinational’s turnover.
According to company data, over the years the service has distributed more than 5.2 billion DVDs, with Tim Burton’s ‘Beetlejuice’ being the one that launched the service in March 1998, while ‘The Blind Side’ (‘A possible dream’), a film starring Sandra Bullock, was the most popular title in the catalogue.
“Those iconic red envelopes changed the way people watched TV shows and movies at home, and paved the way for the shift to streaming,” Sarandos said.
Netflix launched its streaming service in 2007, which in the first quarter of 2023 had a total of 232.5 million paying users worldwide, representing an increase of 1.75 million subscribers compared to the last quarter of 2022, according to the accounts published by the company.
In this sense, Netflix registered profits of 1,305 million dollars (1,189 million euros) in the first quarter of the year, which represents a decrease of 18.2% compared to the same period of the previous year.
The income obtained by Netflix in the first quarter was 8,162 million dollars (7,436 million euros), 3.7% more than in the same period of the previous year.
Regarding the increase in subscribers, in the United States and Canada the platform reached 74.40 million subscribers; while in Europe, the Middle East and Africa there were 77.37 million.
In Latin American countries, the company added up to 41.25 million subscribers, while in Asia-Pacific it achieved 39.48 million users, according to data released by the platform.
Looking ahead to the second quarter, the company expects to reach a revenue figure of 8,242 million dollars (7,520 million euros), which would mean an increase of 3.4% compared to the same period in 2022, while anticipating a drop of 11 % of net profit, up to 1,283 million dollars (1,171 million euros).
“We are on track to meet our financial targets for the full year 2023,” the company said.
