Netflix: Record profit after password sharing crackdown
A crackdown on password sharing in the UK helped profit at Netflix surged to a new record in 2023, it has been revealed.
The London-headquartered division has reported a pre-tax profit of £60.6m for its latest financial year, according to newly-filed accounts with Companies House.
The new total comes after the streaming giant posted a pre-tax profit of £34.1m in 2022.
The results also show that Netflix’s revenue also jumped from £1.54bn to £1.66bn over the same period.
Netflix said its revenue was boosted by a seven per cent growth in its subscriber numbers.
Netflix issued a dividend of £35m in the year, down from £50m in 2022.
In the year the average number of people employed by Netflix in the UK rose from 202 to 220.
Revenue and profit rise for Netflix
The rise in revenue comes after Netflix started to crack down on UK subscribers who share their account with their friends and family.
Warning emails were sent out last year which offered subscribers the chance to add another account for another user for an additional £4.99 a month.
It was reported in January this year that there was a boom in people subscribing to Netflix in 2023 because of the crackdown.
Worldwide, Netflix added more than 13.1m subscriptions in the final three months of the year.
For 2023, the wider Netflix group reported a revenue of more than $33.7bn (£25.7bn), a rise of six per cent compared to 2022.
Its profit totalled $5.4bn (£4.1bn) for the 12 months, up from the $4.4bn (£3.4bn) it achieved in the year before.
The UK results for Netflix come after the European arm of US streaming giant Peacock TV saw its revenue plummet by more than £100m in the year before it was axed from Sky.
The company, which up until January 2024 had provided streaming services in the UK, Germany and Italy via Sky, saw its turnover fall to £28.4m in 2023, down from £163m in the year before.
Peacock said its revenue fell due to it winding down streaming services across Europe.