MUMBAI: The Asia Pacific region is shining for Netflix. At least as far as net subscribers additions  (net paid adds) are concerned.  The region at 2.28 million net adds in Q3 calendar year 2024 was the topmost contributor. It was followed by  2.17 million net adds in Europe, middle east and Africa (EMEA) and 0.69 million net adds  in the US and Canada.  Latin America saw a shaving off of 0.07 million net adds during the period. This was revealed by the global streaming giant in its  latest financial performance report on Thursday in the US. 

Overall, that totted up to five million net paid sub adds in the latest quarter, giving the streamer 282.7 million subscribers globally. It also helped increase its revenue to $9.8 billion  - a 15 per cent rise over the corresponding quarter of the previous year. Net income also showed improved to $2.3 billion.  

The company said it was working on  improving its  product/market fit in APAC and it had a strong local content slate in Japan, Korea, Thailand and India in Q3. As a result, its  revenue growth rate in APAC (19 per cent growth year on year) led all regions.  The  revenue growth figures for the other regions were: US & Canada and EMEA  (16 per cent – 10 per cent growth in average paid members and five per cent growth in average revenue per member) and Latin America (nine per cent). 

“..(We are)…increasingly seeing a steady drumbeat of hit titles from countries around the world,” said Netflix co-CEO, president & director Gregory Peters, during an earnings call with investment analysts. “…you've got Japan. You've got Korea. You've got Thailand. You've got India. This represents, again, that decade-plus investment in those creative communities, working with local storytellers there and making sure that they have the capability to tell their stories in a compelling way. So that's super exciting and we expect to see more of that.”

Among the shows and films from APAC  which did well in the quarter included: Tokyo Swindlers  from Japan (10.5 million views) and Culinary Class Wars from South Korea (11.0 million views),  Officer Black Belt  (South Korea, 32.8 million views), and Maharaja (India, 22.6 million views).

Netflix revealed that it streams around 200 billion hours of content yearly and that engagement continues to be healthy at about two hours per day per paid membership on average, despite the impact of paid sharing.  That is only expected to go up with the push into live streaming of the WWE  for 52 weeks, the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight (15 November), and the NFL in December.

Peters said that “it’s worth noting that our share of viewership in even our biggest countries is still less than 10 per cent of TV time. So we look at this as there's a huge opportunity to grow that share by.. invest (ing) more in our slate, continue (ing) to improve the variety and quality of our offering.”

Additionally, it is continuing its push into the ad based free subscription service which grew 35 per cent in term of number viewers getting into it. This is being done through refining the tech in its back end platform , increasing the number of viewers signng up for it and coming up with new formats for advertising.

On the content front , Netflix  Ted Sarandos said that Q3 had some big hits: Perfect Couple, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, and Nobody Wants This.

He added that “we're really excited about our Q4 slate because it's filled with great big titles from the U.S., from Brazil, from Korea, from the U.K., from Germany…. Carry-On, Piano Lesson, Spellbound, Six Triple Eight, Emilia Pérez.  So when we look forward into 2025 and beyond, we want to build on that success So our 2025 slate, I look at that as another ambitious step towards this push to make us even greater for our members. 
So looking into 2025, you've got new seasons of our biggest shows: Wednesday, Squid Games, Stranger Things, on top of new shows from Shonda Rhimes and Ryan Murphy, a new Knives Out film from Ryan Johnson, Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein, even the return of Happy Gilmore. So we could not be more excited about where we sit right now and where we're heading.”