Netflix Beats Q3 Net Adds Target by 25%

Netflix finished Q3 with 4.38 million paid net subscriber additions, about 25% better than its July 20 forecast of 3.5 million, said its shareholder letter Tuesday. Net paid adds were up 99.1% from the 2020 quarter. Asia Pacific was the largest regional contributor with about half the Q3 growth. “We compete with a staggeringly large set of activities for consumers’ time and attention like watching linear TV, reading a book, browsing TikTok, or playing Fortnite, to name just a few,” said the letter. “As one example of this dynamic,” when Facebook experienced a global outage for several hours on Oct. 4, “our engagement saw a 14% increase,” it said. Netflix later in the year will shift "to reporting on hours viewed for our titles rather than the number of accounts that choose to watch them," said the letter. "We think engagement as measured by hours viewed is a slightly better indicator of the overall success of our titles and member satisfaction. It also matches how outside services measure TV viewing and gives proper credit to rewatching." Netflix will start to release "title metrics" more regularly outside of its quarterly earnings reports "so our members and the industry can better measure success in the streaming world," it said.