Netflix presented yesterday the results for Q4 2022 and made several announcements. Looking in their financials and on their video interview I identified some points that were not said and I think they are also important:
1/ Subscribers: in 2022 the company spent $2.53 bn on Marketing only to acquire 8.9 net subscribers. That’s $284 per subscriber
2/ There are 100m users who are watching Netflix w/o having an account (ie. shared passwords) and sooner or later this problem should be tackled.
3/ We don’t know how many subscribers have the ad-tier plan
4/ Operating margin has declined vs 2021
5/ Revenue per user decreased for the 5th consecutive quarter in Asia and for the 3rd in EMEA
6/ “Tech development” – $2,7 bn – well, what are they working on? Sending a plane in space?
7/ Share price valued at $338, P/E around 29 and no dividends. Are you kidding?
On a good note, the co-founder Reed Hastings transitioned from the co-CEO role to Chairman, leaving the place to Greg Peters. This practice of having two CEOs is more and more common and the story at Netflix shows exactly how large companies should prepare their leaders’ pipeline.
