• by Wayne Friedman , September 26, 2024

Although Netflix continues to see strong global subscriber growth -- 17.4 million global subscribers since the beginning of the year -- total viewing hours have inched up only 1% year-over-year, according to just-released company data and analysis from MoffettNathanson Research. 

“The lack of engagement growth is due to lack of real user growth,” writes MoffettNathanson Media Analyst Robert Fishman, adding that this means just “improved monetization of an existing base – in other words, a de facto price increase.”

This can be a concern to Netflix's still-young advertising-sales operation. “Stalled engagement growth now may mean stalled ad inventory growth (per subscriber) as well,” he says.

The total hours viewed globally for 277 million subscribers are now at 94.0 billion -- up from 93.4 billion during the same period a year ago.

However, the average daily hours viewed per subscriber has declined 13% to 1.9 hours per day (down from 2.1 hours a year ago).

Looking only at the U.S. tells a better story. Total U.S. viewing engagement outpaces subscriber growth -- up 15% (to 20.5 billion hours, per Nielsen) versus 9% (74 million, per Netflix) respectively, year-over-year.

Average daily viewing per subscriber is up 4% to 1.5 hours a day year-over-year.

For 74 million U.S. subscribers, that comes to a total of 20.5 billion hours viewed in the first half of 2024 -- up from 17.9 billion a year ago for 68 million subscribers.

“To be clear, this is a different data set that is not directly comparable to the data Netflix released,” says Fishman. 

He adds: “Nielsen’s numbers are estimates based on a proprietary sample and does not include viewership on mobile devices, meaning these numbers likely undercount total viewership (by how much is unknown).”

The most-viewed Netflix show in the first half of year was Season Three of "Bridgerton" (734 million hours), followed by limited series "Fool Me Once" (690 million) and "Queen of Tears" (683 million); Season One of "Avatar: The Last Airbender" (515 million), and Season One of "The Gentlemen" (507 million).