Netflix: Lower usage puts price promise to the test

Netflix is earning more money even as doubts grow about how tightly it holds its audience. On 25 October 2026, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the figures, that customers opened the app on fewer days and watched less on average than before. According to the report, the company did not comment on the internal metrics.

At the same time, the publicly available business figures show growth: in the third quarter Netflix generated revenue of 12.874 billion dollars, 11.8 percent more than a year earlier. The apparent contradiction dissolves when revenue, usage and customer numbers are looked at separately. For Swiss subscribers, what matters is not the stock market valuation but the service they receive for their monthly bill.

Three metrics, three different statements

Bloomberg describes, among other things, «qualified play days», an internal metric for how often the service is used. Such figures are an indication of customer loyalty, but they are not a publicly accessible full survey whose definitions and time series could be independently recalculated. The report also says that total viewing time rose slightly in the first half of the year because more customers joined.

More total hours with fewer hours per membership is arithmetically possible. Revenue can likewise rise if higher prices or additional paying accounts offset weaker usage. That does not automatically mean a wave of cancellations, nor does it prove that the offering is gaining value for every household.

Changes in account sharing in particular make comparisons difficult. If the same viewing time is in future attributed to several paid memberships, average usage per account falls without all previous viewers having to watch less television. Whether this effect explains the reported decline cannot be conclusively determined from the publicly cited internal data.

What independent US figures contribute

On 22 October, Nielsen reported a Netflix share of 7.7 percent of total US television time for the measurement month of August. YouTube reached 15.8 percent. That shows the competition for attention, but it measures something different from monthly app openings: television usage in the US rather than personal usage across all devices and countries.

The period also matters. The August measurement runs from 27 July to 30 August. Nielsen also announces a methodological adjustment from September; September and October are to be published together later. A report published in October is therefore not an October measurement. From these figures a decline in Swiss usage can certainly not be quantified.