When Netflix reported its third quarter earnings this October, the company had a pleasant surprise for its shareholders.
The streaming giant returned to subscriber growth quicker than anticipated, beating its own forecast for net subscriber additions by 140 percent.
According to the company’s latest earnings release, Netflix added 8.3 million subscribers in the last three months of 2021, bringing total subscriber growth for the year to 18.2 million.
That’s the lowest annual subscriber gain since 2016, when Netflix added roughly the same number of new subs.
The company added 36 million subscribers in 2020, but saw its subscriber growth slow significantly in 2021 before it came to a screeching halt in the first half of 2022.
Between January and June, the company lost 1.2 million subscribers, causing unrest among the company’s shareholders.
Netflix’s share price jumped 13 percent after reporting its return to growth this week. However, as of October 20, it was still down more than 50 percent from the beginning of this year.
