Netflix reported 77.3 million paid streaming subscribers across the United States and Canada in the third quarter of 2023. After a decline in the U.S. and Canadian subscriber base during the first nine months of 2022, this marked a growth of about four million compared with the same quarter of the previous year.
Why is Netflix losing subscribers?
The EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa) region is Netflix's top-performing market in terms of subscribers surpassing North America in the third quarter of 2022 for the first time. The company reported losing an estimated one million users worldwide in the second quarter of 2022, with the number of Netflix users standing at approximately 221 million that quarter. But why have audiences canceled their subscriptions? One reason for the unprecedented drop in account holders is Netflix's monthly fee, which has been increasing rapidly over the past few years. On top of that, viewers have also voiced criticism over Netflix's cancellation of popular shows and its lack of big movie franchises.
What are audiences watching?
Netflix's vast content library offers anything from reality TV to Hollywood blockbusters, with shows and movies delivered in many different languages. As of early 2023, European countries such as Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Latvia boasted the largest content catalogs on Netflix at over eight thousand titles each. In the U.S., where audiences could choose from approximately six thousand titles, "NCIS" and "Cocomelon" ranked among the most popular streaming series on Netflix in 2022. As of 2022, fan favorites "The Crown" and "Stranger Things" were the most expensive Netflix original series, with production costs of 13 and 30 million U.S. dollars per episode, respectively.
