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Netflix makes up nearly 30 percent of global streaming video subscriptions

The streaming video company now has 155 million total subscribers globally.

Brooks Rattigan (Noah Centineo) and Celia Lieberman (Laura Marano) in a scene from Netflix’s The Perfect Date.
Brooks Rattigan (Noah Centineo) and Celia Lieberman (Laura Marano) in a scene from Netflix’s The Perfect Date.
Brooks Rattigan (Noah Centineo) and Celia Lieberman (Laura Marano) in a scene from Netflix’s The Perfect Date.
Courtesy of Netfix
Rani Molla
Rani Molla was a senior correspondent at Vox and has been focusing her reporting on the future of work. She has covered business and technology for more than a decade — often in charts — including at Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal.

Netflix has 148 million paying users around the globe, up 26 percent from the same quarter last year and in line with analyst expectations, according to the streaming video company’s latest earnings report. When you add free trials to active subscriptions, the streaming company now has 155 million users globally.

But how big is that really?

Netflix subscriptions are still just a fraction of the size of the number of global, digital pay-TV subscriptions. There are more than a billion paying digital TV subscribers nationwide, according to market research firm IHS Markit. That counts people who cough up for cable, satellite, and internet protocol television (IPTV).

At more than 500 million subscriptions in 2019, all online subscription video services — Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video — combined represent about half the users of digital pay TV, according to IHS. They’re also growing a lot faster.

Netflix makes up nearly 30 percent of all streaming video subscriptions.

Most of Netflix’s growth is coming from abroad, while US growth is slowing as it reacts to growing competition in a crowded media landscape. Total international subscriptions rose 37 percent since Q1 last year, while domestic subscriptions grew only 9 percent.

Netflix is still the biggest streaming video contender in an industry that is swiftly gaining on traditional TV, but its growth is becoming more difficult in a country like the United States that is replete with other choices.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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