Summary
Management framed the business as healthy, with growth opportunities in advertising, live events and games, while stressing continued execution and investment discipline.
- 8.6%8.6% U.S. TV view share marked a quarterly high, while view hours grew faster than in the first half.
- Advertising is moving from capability-building to faster scaling, but management declined to quantify 2026 ad growth.
- Management said K-pop Demon Hunters’ theatrical success reinforced, rather than changed, Netflix’s Netflix-first release strategy.
- The company remains focused on organic growth; no content asset or acquisition is considered necessary to meet its goals.
What analysts pressed on
- 012026 outlook: management deferred full-year guidance until January, reiterating healthy revenue growth, margin expansion and higher free cash flow as objectives.
- 02Advertising growth: management declined to say whether 2026 ad revenue could double, citing upfront commitments split across 2025 and 2026 and faster programmatic growth.
- 03Live-event returns: management cited positive acquisition impact but said it was too early to assess retention definitively.
- 04Sports rights: management said it prioritizes audience appeal and event scale, not whether rights materially accelerate ad growth.
- 05M&A and consolidation: management described a selective framework, ruled out legacy media networks, and said consolidation does not itself change competitive dynamics.
- 06AI competition: management said generative AI may affect user-generated content sooner, while positioning it as a creative tool rather than a replacement for storytelling.
Notable disclosures
- 20%The Brazilian tax charge covered 2022 through Q3 2025; about 20% related to 2025, and management expects no material future impact.
- Management said no single third-party content supplier accounts for more than a small minority of total view hours.
- Management described games as a “less is more” strategy focused on selected genres and cohorts, with investment ramping only alongside returns.
- Netflix’s first live interactive feature, real-time voting, is being tested on Dinner Time Live and is planned to roll out more broadly with Star Search in January.
Risks raised
- The Brazilian Supreme Court’s ruling against an unrelated company made Netflix’s potential liability probable, prompting a cost-of-revenue charge.
- Management said live events remain a very small portion of Netflix’s 200 billion hours viewed, despite outsized audience and acquisition effects.
- Management acknowledged third-party content availability can ebb and flow as competitors reconsider licensing, though it said Netflix is not dependent on any single supplier.
- Management said it will ramp gaming investment judiciously, contingent on demonstrating returns to the business.
Tone: Confident 0.72
Management emphasized healthy engagement, strong ad momentum and substantial growth runway, while acknowledging execution demands and declining to quantify 2026 guidance.
Who spoke
Company
- Spencer WangVP of Finance, IR, and Corporate Development
- Greg Petersco-Chief Executive Officer and President
- Ted Sarandosco-Chief Executive Officer and President
- Spencer NeumannChief Financial Officer
Analysts
- Ben SwinburneAnalyst, Morgan Stanley
- Steve CahallAnalyst, Wells Fargo
- Tom ChampionAnalyst, Piper Sandler
- Jason HelfsteinAnalyst, Oppenheimer
- Vikram KesevabotlaAnalyst, Baird
- Dan SalmonAnalyst, New Street Research
- Dan KurnosAnalyst, Benchmark Company
- Robert FishmanAnalyst, Moffitt Nathanson
- Rich GreenfieldAnalyst, LightShed Partners
- Jessica Reif-EhrlichAnalyst, Bank of America
- David JoyceAnalyst, Seaport Research Partners
- Justin PattersonAnalyst, KeyBank
- John HudlickAnalyst, UBS
Full transcript
Analyst questions are marked with a bar. Timestamps are into the recording.
Prepared remarks
Spencer WangVP of Finance, IR, and Corporate Development
Good afternoon and welcome to the Netflix Q3 2025 earnings interview. I'm Spencer Wang, VP of Finance, IR, and Corporate Development. Joining me today are co-CEOs Ted Surrendos and Greg Peters and CFO Spence Newman. As a reminder, we will be making forward-looking statements and actual results may vary. We'll now take questions submitted by the analyst community and we will start with our results and outlook.
Questions and answers
Ben SwinburneAnalyst, Morgan Stanley
Our first question comes from Ben Swinburne of Morgan Stanley, who asks, as you begin to wrap up 2025 and look to 2026, can you talk broadly about the health of the business and how you would frame the opportunity ahead?
Greg Petersco-Chief Executive Officer and President
We think the business is very healthy. We feel good about our progress on our key initiatives. We've got also a lot of opportunity ahead of us, but we've got a lot of work we need to do to accomplish and fully realize those opportunities. So what's working? We had a good Q3. We had revenue in line with expectations. Our operating income would have exceeded our forecast absent the Brazilian tax matter.
We're also seeing good progress against our key priorities. So engagement remains healthy. We achieved record share of TV time in Q3 in both the U. S. and the U. K. We recorded our best ad sales quarter ever. We are now on track to more than double ad revenue this year. We're continuing to build out both live offerings and games. These are the emerging capabilities. On the live side, we saw Canelo Crawford. That was the most viewed men's championship fight this century.
We recently announced the ability to play Netflix games on TV with friends and family playing together at home using just that TV and the phone as the game controller. So this progress in these areas is indicative of how we think we can best compete and grow the business over the long term. We focus on a few key areas that we think matter the most. And then we work hard to deliver continuous improvement in those areas. It sounds super simple, but building a real at scale global stream business is hard because you've got to combine great tech product and great content from all around the world. And we believe we can continue to improve in both those areas.
But Ted, maybe you want to comment?
Ted Sarandosco-Chief Executive Officer and President
Yeah, I would just say, you know, looking ahead, we continue to have a massive opportunity since we're only about 7% of the addressable market in terms of consumer spending and only about 10% of time spent on TV in our biggest market. So enormous room for profitable growth in the core business. And this is a very exciting time in terms of a lot of innovation, a lot of competition.
But that's been true for the last 25 years. And one thing as a company, we've always embraced change. We thrive on competition. It pushes us to improve the service even faster for our members. Back at the beginning, in the early DVD days even, and now in streaming and global streaming of original content, we could be with the biggest players in the world, tech and media.
And as you see, we keep growing engagement, revenue, and profit. So today we're an entertainment company. We program for an audience that's approaching a billion people around the world. We're producing series and films for local audiences in multiple markets. Many of those films and series resonate around the world. And a really great example of that, I think, is this summer's K-pop Demon Hunters. Obviously a smash hit, but it's also emblematic of exactly what we're trying to do every day.
In fact, feature animation is an example of that continuously improving the core. We've been grinding away at original feature animation for a few years now, and K-pop Demon Hunters is our most popular film ever. and again it proves our ability to create breakthrough hits and move the culture today we announced Mattel and Hasbro have been named the global co-master toy licensees for K-pop demon hunter this is a rare maybe unprecedented partnership for them and we're going to need them both to help meet the massive demand for fans to get closer to their characters off screen every day we're here to entertain the world and we're delivering tremendous value to our members every day. When you ever hit the size of K-pop Demon Hunters, it stirs the imagination of how big we could take this.
And as long as we keep improving on the core business every day. So we feel great about the business. And as Greg said, we are as energized as ever.
Spencer WangVP of Finance, IR, and Corporate Development
Thank you, Ted and Greg.
Steve CahallAnalyst, Wells Fargo
Our next question comes from Steve Cahill of Wells Fargo. Can you please provide more color on the nature of the tax expense and why it fell above the operating line.
Spencer NeumannChief Financial Officer
Sure, Spencer, I'll take that one. Greg and Ted were on a roll, but I think I will take the short straw for this one. I'll spend a minute on it because this Brazilian tax matter, it's a bit complicated, and I want to be sure we're being really clear about what it is and what it isn't. It's not an income tax. It's a cost of doing business in Brazil. It's a gross tax on outbound payments, and it's called the Contribution for Intervention in economic domain. So it's a bit of a mouthful. It involves a 10% tax on certain payments made by Brazilian entities to companies outside of Brazil. It's not a tax that's specific to Netflix.
It's not even specific to streaming. So we assume other companies will be impacted by this. In our case, Netflix Brazil pays Netflix US for services that enable Netflix Brazil to offer subscriptions to our Brazilian customers. And we actually received a favorable ruling from a lower court back in 2022 that concluded we were not subject to this tax, which is why we believe we couldn't accrue this previously. The legal issue in question relates to the scope of the transactions covered by the tax, and in particular, whether the tax applies to service payments that don't involve a transfer of technology. We flagged this as a potential exposure in our prior 10-Ks and 10-Qs dating back to our 2023 10K.
And then in August of this year, the Brazil Supreme Court reached a 7-4 decision against an unrelated company, ruling that the tax applies to a wider range of transactions than we thought was legally permissible, in particular that it applies even to service payments that don't involve a transfer of technology. So given that court's ruling, that's caused us to reevaluate the likelihood of prevailing, and we now deem the loss to be probable. and that's why we recorded the expense in Q3. Again, it's not an income tax and that's why we recorded the expense as a component of our cost of revenues.
And as we said in the letter, the expense we booked in this quarter, it covers the periods from 2022 through Q3 of 2025. Of the amount we booked in cost of revenues this quarter, just about 20% of it is for the year 2025 with the remainder related to those 2022 to 2024 periods. So I know that was a lot. There's just two really important takeaways that I want to leave you with. The first is that the contribution for intervention in economic domain, it's a unique tax. It is a mouthful. No other tax looks or behaves like this in any other major country in which we operate. And secondly, absent this expense, we would have exceeded our Q325 operating income and operating margin forecast.
And we don't expect this matter to have a material impact on our results going forward.
Spencer WangVP of Finance, IR, and Corporate Development
Great. Thanks, Spence.
Tom ChampionAnalyst, Piper Sandler
I'll move on to the next question, which comes from Tom Champion of Piper Sandler. Do you have any early views on revenue and operating income growth for 2026?
Spencer NeumannChief Financial Officer
I'll take this one as well. Yeah. OK, so we'll issue a full year 2026 guidance on our next call in January. but our financial objectives are unchanged. We look to sustain healthy revenue growth, look to expand margins and increase free cash flow. Now, we did last year on our Q3 call, we did issue full-year guidance, but that was in advance of sunsetting membership reporting. So it was a pretty unique timing giving that upcoming change in reporting. For 26, again, we'll issue the full-year 26 guide as we more typically would on our next call in January.
Spencer WangVP of Finance, IR, and Corporate Development
Thanks, Spence. I'll move us along to a few questions we've received on the topic of advertising.
Jason HelfsteinAnalyst, Oppenheimer
The first one comes from Jason Helfstein of Oppenheimer. Given your comment of doubling upfront commitments in the earnings letter, should we interpret this to mean that full year 2026 advertising could also double?
Greg Petersco-Chief Executive Officer and President
I'll start by just saying it's exciting to see our progress in 2025 more than doubling our ads revenue there, while, of course, it stole off a small base relative to the size of our subscription revenue. But we feel like we've established the fundamentals of the business now. We've proven we know how to scale. We see plenty of room for growth ahead. And what's making up that growth right now? As you mentioned, we more than doubled our U. S. upfront commitments. That lands partly in 25 and partly in 26, which I think you're alluding to here. Perhaps even more importantly, though, we're seeing even higher rates of growth in programmatic. And that's more important because we believe that's going to be an increasing part of that incremental revenue contribution going forward.
What are driving those results? Advertisers are excited about our growing scale. We've got a highly attentive and engaged audience. The rollout of our ad tech stack means we've got more formats, we've got more measurement, we've got more ways to buy.
Spencer WangVP of Finance, IR, and Corporate Development
And of course, our slate is a critical and important source of competitive differentiation So while I refrain from offering any 2026 guidance I would say we are feeling good about our growth trajectory Thanks, Greg.
Vikram KesevabotlaAnalyst, Baird
A follow-up on that one from Vikram Kesevabotla of Baird. Your offering to advertisers has evolved significantly in 2025, including the launch of the ad suite and the integrations with additional demand sources. As we look into next year, what are some of the key priorities? for the advertising business.
Greg Petersco-Chief Executive Officer and President
Yeah, consistent with the last comment and answer, we made considerable progress in building out our general capabilities in the ad space. So if you use our beloved crawl, walk, run model, we're now squarely in that walking phase. The rollout of the ads suite, our own ad suite, has been great because it means we're just continuing to learn and improve the stack based on client feedback. So we've got a really fast iteration loop going there that we're excited about. key priorities and focus for us is making it easier for advertisers to buy on our service. We want to increase the diversity of advertisers we have. That's a key direction of growth for us that enables that revenue growth.
We're adding more demand sources like Amazon DSP, AJA, and Japan. We're improving our own ad sales and go-to-market capabilities. We're also iterating on ad formats. Later this quarter, we'll be introducing ad interactivity. And taking that into 2026, you're going to see us continue to develop along some of those lines. So more ways to buy, more data for targeting and media planning capabilities globally, more modular and interactive ad formats with enhanced AI capabilities, and more measurement functionality in all of our markets. And then in 2027, we get to pivot to make more focused investments in data capabilities, such as ML-based optimization, advanced measurement, advanced targeting. So I would say, You know, we're getting our legs underneath us.
We're making a good pace, but we've got a lot ahead of us to go do. And quite frankly, we expect we're going to be able to move more quickly than other streamers as we leverage pre-existing tech and data science assets and expertise.
Spencer WangVP of Finance, IR, and Corporate Development
Thanks, Greg.
Dan SalmonAnalyst, New Street Research
And to round out our last question on advertising, this one comes from Dan Salmon of New Street Research. Are fill rates improving in line with your expectations as the Netflix ad suite and new demand partnerships scale up?
Greg Petersco-Chief Executive Officer and President
Now, we focus on overall revenue is the most important metric we're seeking to optimize. But having said that, fill rates have improved, and we believe they're going to continue to improve as we continue to develop our go-to-market capabilities, more measurement, more targeting.
Spencer WangVP of Finance, IR, and Corporate Development
Thanks, Greg. I'll now move us along to the topic of content and engagement. A lot of questions there.
Steve CahallAnalyst, Wells Fargo
We'll begin first with Steve Cahall of Wells Fargo. Are you seeing a pickup and engagement like you've expected?
Ted Sarandosco-Chief Executive Officer and President
Yes. Total view hours grew a bit faster in Q3 25 than in the first half of 25. In fact, in Q3, we achieved our highest quarterly view share ever in the United States at 8.6 percent. And then the UK at 9.4 percent, according to Nielsen and Barb, respectively. These are just two countries that we've got really good measurement on that share. We also believe we're going to continue to see steady growth in view hours over time. We grow engagement by expanding our programming and the range of our offering. This is a critical and very proven dimension of growth for us.
But we're also seeing that certain engagement delivers outsized in different value. And we saw pretty good examples of this in Q3. You got the Canelo Crawford fight, most viewed men's championship boxing match this century. You got K-pop Demon Hunters, our biggest film ever, huge impact on the cultural zeitgeist. Both are great examples, and they're also from really different parts of our programming spectrum of this punctuated value.
Now, we believe we've got a better understanding of the streaming business than any of our competitors, but we're also continuing to learn. And we're in the process of really building a better understanding of how these particular moments deliver differential value to our members and the business.
Greg Petersco-Chief Executive Officer and President
yeah i mean just add here steve um we're going to continue to benefit long term from the trend just some folks moving from linear from linear viewing to streaming that has a kind of a natural adoption curve um but i also look for and we have an incredible slate in q4 and we're really excited to follow that up in 2026 but it's not about any one single title in q4 or next year you know as you know, even our largest titles and the biggest success generally drives less than one percent of our total viewing. So it's really about having a steady drumbeat of shows and films that our members love. That's what drives continued steady growth and engagement over time.
And we gave a lot of detail about our Q4 coming up in the letter, including an incredible slate of film and the wild ride finale of Stranger Things. But I want to give you a little bit of color in 26 maybe this is a longer answer than you were bargaining for steve but we're really particularly excited about a few things that coming up next year um like the return of some of our biggest and most loved shows like bridgerton beef emily in paris uh one piece outer banks virgin river the gentleman avatar the last airbender running point ginny and georgia lupon all coming back for new seasons in 26 we've got this amazing slate of films with uh you know a big event film from Greta Gerwig with Narnia.
Here Comes the Flood, starring Denzel Washington. Ben Affleck is directing this great movie for us called Animals. Apex from Charlize Theron, an incredible action movie. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are on screen together and starring in The Rip. A couple of great rom-coms, Office Romance with Jennifer Lopez, People We Meet on Vacation. Our French team has got an incredible epic film, Quasimodo, coming up. And Peaky, blinders fans are going to freak out for the peaky blinders movie the immortal man with killian murphy it's really great and i and lots and lots of brand new series work coming going on this year and coming out in 26 golf with will ferrell little house on the prairie man on fire we have new series from the duffer brothers amazing slate of k-dramas that's just to name a few but in other words we've got a pretty great 26 coming up after this pretty phenomenal q4 Thanks, Ted.
Spencer WangVP of Finance, IR, and Corporate Development
Dan Kurnos from Benchmark Company has a question about our Spotify partnership.
Dan KurnosAnalyst, Benchmark Company
How should we think about the recent deal with Spotify? How aggressively will you build out this podcast category?
Greg Petersco-Chief Executive Officer and President
So this deal is a video co-exclusive partnership with Spotify that secures a curated selection of their top podcasts to help us provide even more entertainment options for our members when they're looking for pop culture or lifestyle or sports or true crime. And we get to deliver to them wherever and however they want to watch. And we're going to build into this category like we do with our other categories based on demand signals that we get from our members. And we see this as really, you know, the opportunity to integrate high quality video podcasts. That broadens the Netflix offering beyond all the incredible films and series that Ted just mentioned, beyond the live events that we are building, stand up specials and games.
And we hope that, you know, that ultimately reinforces our value as the most important service for entertainment needs.
Spencer WangVP of Finance, IR, and Corporate Development
Thanks, Greg.
Robert FishmanAnalyst, Moffitt Nathanson
Our next question comes from Robert Fishman of Moffitt Nathanson.
Ted Sarandosco-Chief Executive Officer and President
following the strong theatrical performance of k-pop demon hunters can you share your updated perspective on monetizing some of your content in the theatrical window on a on an exclusive or non-exclusive basis well first of all um thanks robert there's no change in the strategy our strategy is to give our members exclusive first run movies on netflix um we occasionally release certain films and theaters for our fans like we did with k-pop demon hunters or as part of our launch strategy, publicity, marketing, qualification, all those things, and we'll continue to do that.
We believe that this film, K-pop Demon Hunters, actually worked because it was released on Netflix first. Look, we had a film that people fell in love with. That's first and foremost, but not in a huge way on the first day or even the first weekend. In fact, it was the super fans who watched the movie and repeat watched the movie that drove the recommendation engine, that got it in front of more superfans who also fell in love with the movie.
So that ease and value that allowed folks to repeat view it, the ubiquity of distribution, which took all the guesswork out of how to watch it when you did finally see it show up in your social media feed, all of this contributed to K-pop demon hunters blowing up all over the world. And I would argue in a way that it couldn't happen anywhere else.
If anything, this actually reinforces our strategy because being on Netflix gave the film a chance to build momentum and it allowed fans to learn the songs and to watch it over and over again and to make their own posts and their own dances around K-pop Demon Hunter.
Now for some films seeing it together and singing out loud is super fun and it a differentiated experience and we were able to do that with the K Demon Hunter sing eight weeks after the film premiered on Netflix and we did have a good weekend But we created a great night out and we going to do it again on Halloween weekend And this time, every major theater chain is on for the ride. We're also adding a few international markets. So it's been really fun to see this film and to see our ability to break through pop culture on par with some of the biggest theatrical films ever.
Spencer WangVP of Finance, IR, and Corporate Development
And it's even better that it's with an original animated feature because it's so hard to do great uh we now have a question on our live events from Vikram Kessabotla Baird um what were your observations uh from the Canelo versus Crawford fight in September are these types of live events impacting engagement acquisition and retention on the platform yeah well like Greg said earlier that the Canelo Crawford fight uh it was the most viewed men's championship fight of the century uh had over 41 million live plus one viewers.
Ted Sarandosco-Chief Executive Officer and President
It was in the top 10 in 91 countries, and it was a great fight. So we believe these big events that attract mass audiences are kind of differentially valuable for our members. It's a kind of urgent viewing that our members love and value. So these events typically have outsized positives for conversation and for acquisition, and we strongly suspect retention. However, you know, we've said earlier, live is only a small portion of our content span, and it's a very small portion of our 200 billion hours viewed. So it's a, you know, it's relatively small still, but hugely outsized impact. And we, you know, we like we've seen with other titles, this has had that kind of positive impact on acquisition.
It's a little too early to say for sure and retention, but so far it looks a lot like the Jake Paul Mike Tyson performance. And we remain incredibly excited about the opportunity in live. So, you know, upcoming, we've got Jake Paul versus Tank Davis from Miami, November 14th. And we really are trying to grow our capabilities outside of the U. S. as well, which we'll see next year with the World Baseball Classic from Japan.
Spencer WangVP of Finance, IR, and Corporate Development
Thanks, Ted. And that's a good segue to our next question, which is the quarterly question about sports for us.
Robert FishmanAnalyst, Moffitt Nathanson
This is from Robert Fishman of Moffitt-Nakinson. Since last earnings, We've seen several sports rights deals, including Apple F1, Paramount UFC, et cetera, et cetera. While we still await an official MLB update, can you help us think about the importance of global sports rights versus local rights to Netflix? And do the sports rights you look to acquire need to materially accelerate your advertising growth?
Ted Sarandosco-Chief Executive Officer and President
So as for local versus global, it's just a scale question. Local cost versus the size of local audience. So no real change in the approach. You know, we're focused on big live events, which sports are a subcomponent of the live strategy. We said before, we're not currently focused on the big season packages in terms of global versus local. Also, we think about it just like series. It varies.
Some like the Canelo Crawford fight had big global appeal. We think World Baseball Classic in Japan was actually built and designed and budgeted for a specific geography. as far as advertising is concerned, the number one important thing we have to do is thrill our audiences.
The revenue from advertising or subscription is the reward for thrilling the audience. So we have to stay disciplined on that approach. But for upcoming live events that we're excited about, I mentioned Jake Paul versus Tank. That's November 14th. We have our doubleheader NFL Christmas Day games with Dallas versus Washington, Detroit versus Minnesota. Skyscraper Live is going to be wild. The SAG Awards, we've got WWE every week. I mentioned the World Baseball Classic in Japan in 2026. And in 2027 and 31, we've got FIFA's Women's World Cup as well. So we're pretty excited about the slate, and there's going to be a lot more that will come in between.
Spencer WangVP of Finance, IR, and Corporate Development
Thanks, Ted.
Rich GreenfieldAnalyst, LightShed Partners
We'll take our next question from rich greenfield of uh light shed partners uh are you testing premium uh tier free trials we recently we meaning rich recently opened netflix and were prompted with a 4k upgrade screen is this a typical promotion or are you selectively testing free trials yes we test and productize a variety of offers that we think help members understand and sometimes try a feature a benefit that we think they might enjoy.
Greg Petersco-Chief Executive Officer and President
So if you've got a 4K TV, as Rich does, you might get a notice from us and say, do you want to try watching, let's say, Skyscraper Live that Ted mentioned somebody free climbing Taipei 101 in 4K and decide if that's a good option for you. But ultimately, we want a range of plans. We want a range of features, different price points. And then we want to help members choose the right plan for themselves. We think that yields a better member satisfaction and that yields better engagement and retention and a better long-term business.
Spencer WangVP of Finance, IR, and Corporate Development
Thanks, Greg. We've gotten a series of questions on M&A on that topic today, not surprising given the announcement from our friends at Warner Brothers Discovery.
Jessica Reif-EhrlichAnalyst, Bank of America
So we'll take this next question from Jessica Reif-Ehrlich of Bank of America. Do you see potential industry consolidation reshaping the competitive landscape? Do you see that as an opportunity or threat? what implications might that have for Netflix's content strategy and differentiation?
Greg Petersco-Chief Executive Officer and President
Thanks, Jessica. We'll take it in two parts. First, the opportunity. It's true that historically we've been more builders than buyers, and we have plenty of runway for growth without fundamentally changing that playbook. Nothing is a must-have for us to meet the goals that we have for the business. But as we wrote in the letter, we focus on profitable growth and reinvesting in our business, both organically and through selective M&A.
And when it comes to M&A opportunities, we look at them, and we look at all of them, and we apply the same framework and lens that we look at when we look to invest in a build.
Is it a big opportunity? First question. Second, if it's IP, does it strengthen our entertainment offering? Is there additional value in ownership? Does it strengthen our existing capabilities somehow? Does it accelerate our existing strategy? By the way, and you look at all these things relative to the price, relative to the opportunity cost, and relative to other alternatives.
We've been very clear in the past that we have no interest in owning legacy media networks, so there is no change there. But in general, we believe that we can be and we will be choosy. We have a great business. We're predominantly focused on growing organically, investing aggressively and responsibly into the growth and returning access cash flow to shareholders through our shot to share repurchase. Greg, you want to add there? Yeah, maybe I'll try and speak to that second part of this, the threat part of the question.
You know, we've always faced significant competition. We still face it today. This is, you know, an incredibly competitive entertainment environment. We've also seen a lot of industry consolidation over the years. Think about Disney Fox and Amazon picking up MGM, of course, Time Warner and AT&T and then Discovery and Warner. But, you know, none of those mergers were a fundamental shift in the competitive landscape. And we have seen also a wide range of outcomes from such mergers. So watching some of our competitors potentially get bigger via M&A does not change in and of itself, at least our view on the competitive landscape. And we don't think it changes the substance of the challenge that our competitors face.
Specifically, the range of activities that we and our competitors have to get great at has never been assembled in a single company before. Think about, you know, producing film and TV shows across multiple genres and multiple languages in dozens of countries around the world. Trying to figure out how to incorporate the latest technology, including, you know, AI and Gen AI. We're trying to figure out how we build better product experiences, conserve consumers better around the world. How about customer acquisition and retention? How do we optimize global payments? How do we optimize global partnerships? There is so much.
And we want to get better at all those things. Our competitors are seeking to get better at all those things, of course, as well. But you have to do that by the hard work of developing those capabilities in the trenches day to day. You don't get there simply by buying another company that is also still developing those same capabilities. So maybe I'll just end by reiterating what Ted said, which is it's our responsibility to look at every significant opportunity. We do that. We've got a clear framework to evaluate those opportunities and we'll do whatever we think is best to grow the business.
Spencer WangVP of Finance, IR, and Corporate Development
Great. Thank you.
David JoyceAnalyst, Seaport Research Partners
David Joyce from Seaport Research Partners has a slightly different angle on the M&A question. question. Should potential industry consolidation with embedded studio and streaming assets, could that lead to less third-party content accessibility for Netflix?
Greg Petersco-Chief Executive Officer and President
Thanks David. Look original titles are the big business driver for us. That where we got into this you know more than 10 years ago It why we continue to grow and expand the original content investment across new genres new content forms and multiple geographies So we happy to license titles from industry suppliers to complement our offering But it's worth noting that we've always seen these kind of ebbs and flows from third-party content in terms of access to it. Our competitors are also our suppliers, so they change their mind sometimes about selling to competitors. So we've been dealing with that since the beginning of streaming.
But as we sit here today, we're not dependent on any single supplier. No single supplier represents more than a small minority of our total view hours. And more importantly, I think, is that we've proven time and time again that licensing to Netflix is the best way to build audience, build revenue, and create value for your IP. Whether it's suits or Peaky Blinders or Breaking Bad, we've played a very positive role in the life cycle of other folks' IP, and we suspect that dynamic will continue.
Spencer WangVP of Finance, IR, and Corporate Development
Great.
Justin PattersonAnalyst, KeyBank
We now have a question from Justin Patterson of KeyBank. Netflix recently launched party games that are playable on the TV. How do you think gaming could change the time members spend with Netflix each day?
Greg Petersco-Chief Executive Officer and President
Well, games are clearly a form of entertainment that consumers care about in terms of the time they spend, which you noted, as well as the money they spend. It's approximately $140 billion opportunity consumer spend. Ex-China, ex-Russia. That doesn't even include the ad revenue, which, of course, is linked to the time and engagement. We've mostly talked so far about our work in this space as games because that's an easy shorthand. But we see this initiative is more about interactivity broadly and how does interactivity become complementary to linear storytelling? How is it able to unlock whole new entertainment experiences? For example, real time voting will be our first live interactive feature. We're currently testing it on dinner time with dinner time live with David Chang.
It's going to roll out more broadly, starting with Star Search in January. And we expect to provide other interactive features to deepen engagement with live events as we go in the future. And then when it comes to actual games, we've been building a ton of foundations for the last few years. Things like the ability just to develop games, to get those games onto service, connect games with players, give them a high quality experience.
And going forward, we're building on top of that foundation, but focusing on offering more high quality games in a few key genres and targeting the right cohort of users. So this is a less is more strategy on a few identified verticals. Those verticals include immersive narrative games based on our own IP. You can think about Squid Game Unleashed or Thronglets from the Black Mirror universe or Golf with Happy Gilmore.
We've got games for kids. This is Peppa Pig. You know, no ads, no in-app payments, safe within your subscription. Mainstream established titles. Think about what we did with Grand Theft Auto, as well as socially engaging party games, which you noted. We're rolling out this holiday season a slate of party games on TV. It's great for the whole family. When you're in front of that TV, all you need is the TV and your phone is a controller. It's like Boggle Party, Pictionary Game Night, Lego Party, Tetris. We've got Party Crashers, which is a social deception game.
And the part that I like most about this is these games are super easy to access. It's just like our series and films. You scroll to the games tab, you pick whatever you want, click it, and you're in. You don't need a special controller. That's key to this access. And in the years ahead, actually, speaking of controllers, we expect creators will really find interesting and novel ways to unlock all of the power that is in this incredibly advanced controller that we all happen to have in our pockets, which, of course, is our phones. So we're just starting to scratch the surface today. We think there's much more we can ultimately do in this space.
Yet we already see how this approach not only extends the audience's engagement with the story, but it creates a synergy that reinforces both mediums, the interactive and the non-interactive side. It drives engagement, it drives retention, therefore supports the business. So looking ahead, we're going to ramp our investment in this area judiciously based on demonstrating that we're ramping returns to the business. But we're extremely excited about the progress we've got ahead of us.
Ted Sarandosco-Chief Executive Officer and President
I would say do not play boggle with Greg. He's very, very good.
Greg Petersco-Chief Executive Officer and President
Thomas P. is our head of the games unit, but he's good. He has a leg up on us. He's very good. He does. I think he gets to play quite often.
Spencer WangVP of Finance, IR, and Corporate Development
All right.
Steve CahallAnalyst, Wells Fargo
We have another question from Steve Cahill of Wells Fargo. Last quarter, you talked about Netflix being a great place for some creators on YouTube. Since then, you've announced one new creator deal with Mark Rober. Should we expect more on this front? And what kinds of content are you looking for?
Greg Petersco-Chief Executive Officer and President
Thanks, Steve. I said before, but we want to be in business with the best creators on the planet, wherever they are. And some of them are in Hollywood. Some of them are in Korea. Some of them are in Paris. And some of them are sitting on social media platforms and have yet to be discovered. So not everything on YouTube is a fit for us. But there are some creators like Mark Rober, like Miss Rachel, that are great fits for us.
Spencer WangVP of Finance, IR, and Corporate Development
and remember working with content creators from other platforms isn't a recent thing for us folks remember over the years we made Hype House we partnered with Miranda Sings she had a stand-up comedy special and a series called Haters Back Off King Bach who's a big star on social media you can see him in a lot of our films babysitter of Killer Queen when we first met just to name a few but you know now we've we also have created a curated select section of video podcasts as well so some of this stuff is just a very natural expansion and there's plenty of room for the world's best creators wherever they are great we'll now wrap up with our last topic which is gen ai and two sort of questions or maybe a two-part question the first part comes from Doug Amuth of JP Morgan, who's asking, how has your thinking evolved over the past couple of years about Netflix's ability to leverage AI?
John HudlickAnalyst, UBS
And related, John Hudlick at UBS asks, what are your thoughts on the impact from Sora 2 and other new AI content creation apps in terms of increased competition from short form video? Do you think it creates new competition from an engagement standpoint?
Greg Petersco-Chief Executive Officer and President
Perhaps I'll kick it off in the first part of that question. And our thinking about AI hasn't really changed over a decade and a half more. We've had a long history of developing ML and AI solutions. We've got, you know, deep DNA, technology DNA. We've got significant data assets. We've got scaled consumer products, scaled business processes. All of that, we think, enables us to have the opportunity to leverage new technical capabilities as they come online.
And that's our job. We're engaging proactively to do so. As we said in the letter, specifically with Gen. AI, we see a huge number of places in the business where we can bring these technologies in. They provide more capable tools. They improve productivity. They improve velocity of innovation. They deliver better results for members, for creators, for partners.
The vast majority of those cases involve us going to market for solutions and just integrating them into our existing tools and products. But there are a few spaces where we think that making targeted investments is important. We think we can develop often using building blocks from others. So think about this as foundational models that we get open source or commercially to make cutting edge tools and cutting edge experiences. And those targeted areas of investment are better product experiences, content production and advertising.
Ted Sarandosco-Chief Executive Officer and President
And maybe, Ted, you want to pick it up on the content creation apps part of the question? Yeah, look, what we've seen so far from these content creation apps is that it's likely to have a lot more impact on UGC creators the most in the near term. In other words, AI content replacing viewing of existing user generated content. That starts to make sense. But for what we do, it takes a great artist to make something great.
Writing and making shows and films well is a rare commodity, and it's only done successfully by very few people. So AI can give creatives better tools to enhance their overall TV movie experience for our members, but it doesn't automatically make you a great storyteller if you're not. So if music is a leading indicator of all this, AI-generated music has been around for a long time, and there's a lot of it. And it's a pretty small part of total listening, and established artists like Taylor Swift continue to be more popular than ever. So even in a world filled with AI music, AI seems to be mostly a tool for musicians to take their sound in new directions.
And so we're confident that AI is going to help us and help our creative partners tell stories better, faster, and in new ways. We're all in on that. But we're not chasing novelty for novelty's sake here, and we're investing in what we believe delivers value for creators and members alike. So we're not worried about AI replacing creativity, but we're very excited about AI creating tools to help creativity.
Spencer WangVP of Finance, IR, and Corporate Development
Great. Thank you all for your questions. So we're now out of time. So we thank you for joining us for our Q3 call, and we look forward to speaking with you all next quarter. Thank you.
Other Netflix earnings calls
- Q3 2026 earnings call
Management framed the strategy as unchanged, with growth hinging on stronger U.S. content execution and continued investment in the core service. U.S.
Oct 20, 2026Positive0.62 - Q2 2026 earnings call
Management framed the quarter as progress against its full-year plan, with growth driven by subscriptions and advertising rather than quarter-to-quarter optimization.
Jul 16, 2026Confident0.72 - Q1 2026 earnings call
Management framed 2026 as a strong organic-growth year, with substantial runway and investment focused on content, technology and monetization.
Apr 16, 2026Confident0.82 - Q4 2025 earnings call
Management framed 2026 as healthy organic growth alongside disciplined investment, with Warner Bros. positioned as an accelerator rather than a response to weak engagement.
Jan 20, 2026Confident0.72 - Q2 2025 earnings call
Management framed the outlook as stronger underlying growth flowing through largely unchanged expenses, while emphasizing a back-half content slate and disciplined expansion into ads, live, and games.
Jul 17, 2025Confident0.78 - Q1 2025 earnings call
Management framed the call around durable growth opportunities while stressing that internal ambitions are not forecasts and near-term plans remain unchanged.
Apr 17, 2025Positive0.55 - Q4 2024 earnings call
Management framed growth as broad-based, with continued investment supported by engagement, pricing, advertising and live programming.
Jan 21, 2025Confident0.78
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